


Never Truly Free

by manonrose284



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesiac Bucky Barnes, BAMF Natasha Romanov, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Bucky whump, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Character Development, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Epic Bromance, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Happy Bucky Barnes, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Loss, Past Torture, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers, Shuri can’t fix this broken white boy, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2019-07-18 12:28:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 38,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16118444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manonrose284/pseuds/manonrose284
Summary: In a mission gone wrong, Bucky suffers an injury, costing him his memories. He doesn't remember his past, who he truly is or what he's done.As the Avengers learn of who James might have been if not for Hydra and the Winter Soldier, Peter, Clint, and Nat find a friend, Tony starts to understand his parents killer, and Steve gets back the friend he thought was lost forever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So this is my first time posting an Avengers fanfic :) please let me know what you think!

No one had expected the floor to collapse- least of all Bucky.

The expanding Avengers team had been a little occupied during their brief inner conflict to notice that while they were hunting down the former Winter Soldier or Zemo, Hydra agents still lurked in the shadows. Hiding, but quietly reorganizing.

By the time T’challa realized his mistake and Tony was lying on the cold floor in Syberia- Cap walking away with the unconscious soldier- Hydra’s remaining members were dispersing throughout the globe.

Apparently deciding it best to lay low and inject their poisonous influence from a distance.

However small, they were still a threat to national security. As such, the government needed the Avengers to clean up the remainder of Hydra.

Tony and his side agreed to work with the others again, but Steve had one condition.

The Accords were torn to shreds.

And after Tony endured weeks of intense self reflection (aka Pepper lovingly knocked some sense into him), he realized that he couldn’t completely blame Bucky for his parents murder.

But he didn’t have to be warm and fuzzy to the assassin.

Bucky was welcomed into Stark Tower; a vast improvement over the dilapidated apartments he’d been staying in for the past year. Because when he had drug Steve from the river, Helicarriers falling from the sky, something cracked in his damaged mind.

He was James Buchanan Barnes; and the man he almost killed was Steve Rogers. Memories of his past started seeping through the fissures and he’d spent the past year isolated, fearing the Winter Soldiers return.

Fearing this little sliver of freedom would be destroyed.

Once The Accords were trashed, T'challa promised Bucky a visit to see his sister in Wakanda. An enormous gesture in more ways than one; but no matter how important it was to extract Hydra’s influence from Bucky, the trip would have to wait.

The new king needed to return to his people and settle the unrest caused by the power disruption.

And the others had to hold up their end of the bargain- put out the smoldering embers of Hydra.

A mission that had brought them to this ghost town somewhere along the Kazakhstan-Russia border. The lead they were following pointed to a stone structure nestled between two rows of dilapidated buildings.

The tall compositions made of rotting lumber and brick seemed to lean towards the dirt street. The stone standing out at the end of the path.

Meaning that while Sam was guarding Stark Towers and Scarlet Witch was taking out the multitude of small groups trying to blend in with European society with Vision- Bucky, Steve, Tony, Natasha, and Clint were wearing four layers of thermal underpants and still shaking as they dispersed to prepare for Steve’s plan to be executed.

But despite his metal arm, the cold didn’t reach Bucky’s bones or trigger his muscles to shiver.

His body didn’t react unless a superior allowed him to- or more recently, until he told it to.

As the others peel away, sneaking to the three story building, Steve gives him one last look. A question written in his eyes and a promise.

He can’t see Bucky’s face through the hair covering his face like the midnight veil of a widow, but he knows his friend understands.

Bucky gave the slightest of nods, face emotionless, as he turned away to find his post.

His training made him aware of the blue eyes lingering on his retreating form with worry. Sure they had been taking out Hydra cells for weeks, but this particular one was special.

The intel Tony had received contained a list of names. The last of Bucky's old handlers.

The men responsible for the monster he had become, for creating the his daily nightmares, for taking his humanity.

The men responsible for killing Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes.

The promise written in Steve's eyes had said he would make them pay. Today’s targets would not die quickly.

The thought settles nicely in his mind as Bucky climbs one of the partially demolished wooden buildings whose roof supposedly had a prime view of the stone building.

He wanted to go in with the others but given that he’s as good with a sniper rifle as Clint with a bow, and the uncertainty from Banner that he wouldn’t be triggered by seeing the men who had tortured him, the idea was put down quickly.

He allowed his trained instincts to recon, bringing back information that he organized with precision capable only by a refined killer.

Possible escape routes, the lingering scent of sulfur, structural integrity. The last had him the most worried. Although he was ascending the wooden stairs without a sound, he knew it was only due to his feet knowing exactly how to distribute his mass.

Only after another ‘scan’ of his surroundings was he certain no one was hiding in the building, and he took the next two steps as a normal human would.

They groaned and cracked under the immense weight of the assassin. Structural Integrity...poor.

Once on the flat roof, occupied only by termite looking bugs, Bucky gracefully lowers himself and points the gun directly ahead.

He looks through the scope, releases a breath to steady his body, holds a finger over the trigger and waits.

Still as a corpse, he listens.

Surveying the area he steals a quick glance at the far off snow capped mountains. Just like Siberia’s.

Bucky tries not to think of how many times he’d been stationed exactly like this. It's a wonder his hand of flesh wasn’t permanently stained red.

How many innocents had he killed with the hands holding this gun; a position more familiar than breathing?

Sure he remembers every kill- each dying breath or strangled scream- but he had never put a number to them.

Sam, in a rare moment of seriousness, had put on his VA Counselor hat and told Bucky the kills weren’t his fault- that it wasn’t him. So had Steve more than a million times.

But if it wasn’t him that spilled all that blood, then why does he know the pulse of a dying heartbeat from beneath his hands, or know the sound of a broken neck?

Why are the backs of his eyelids stained red?

He shakes his head quickly and refocus on the mission at hand.

A low voice speaks through the device in his ear. It calms the storm of his thoughts and he’s pulled back into reality.

“Move in now,” Steve whispers.

Stark must have finished hacking the systems to lower the alarms.

The others should be closing in from different corners of the building. They have the bastards surrounded.

But something’s wrong.

Something in his mind blares, telling him to listen. His head swivels, instincts directing him towards the building across the street.

He concentrates intensely and a faint yet consistent sound travels through the stale air towards him.

Ticking

But the warning is too late. A bomb- most likely a defense mechanism that Stark missed- detonates.

All at once the building implodes, explosion propelling shrapnel at the already crumbling walls of his perch. In that moment he has two options: jump or fall.

He doesn’t have to look down to know even he couldn't survive a jump from this far up. A voice in his head tells him that’s what he deserves, but stubborn survival instincts take over.

Unable to withstand the blast, his building collapses. Time slows as he falls. Each floor compacting onto one another like a stack of paper beneath him.

The roof mixing with walls and dust, making it impossible to know when he’ll collide with the piling destruction.

Chunks of debris cascade past him in a deadly waterfall. Over the deafening cry of the structure, a scream tears through the ear piece.

_Steve_

As the world around him crumbles, Bucky reaches for his comm unit, desperately needing to tell Steve it’s alright. Everything will be okay.

Relief washes over him despite the chaos when he can feel the comm’s button. He opens his mouth to speak when a slab of wall connects with his skull.

And the chaos turns to darkness.

* * *

 

“Bucky! Buck where are you?!”

_That voice...recognize...need to answer...answer_

He tries to open his mouth, to scream. He doesn’t know where he is or what’s happening, all he knows is that voice needs him.

But the darkness consumes him.

 

The roaring of a jet engine surrounds him as he fades in and out of consciousness.

 

“No major damage but a severe concussion. Won’t know the damage until he wakes up. I’m sorry I can’t do more until he regains consciousness.”

“It’s alright Bruce, thanks.”

“Hey why don’t we put him in his room, he’d probably freak out waking up in the medbay...”

_That voice again…help…what’s happening? help...please..._

But the darkness drowns him again.

 

“Steve, you’ve been standing here for hours, why don’t we let him rest. Come get some food?”

“No thanks Nat, I can’t leave hi-”

“What would he say to you not taking care of yourself after a mission?”

“He’d cuss me out…”

“Exactly. Let’s go, super soldier.”

 

  
Something tells him the voices have left and that the exit is closed.

_Ok just...open your eyes_

His lids obey but the edges of his vision flicker and dance, playing with the light streaming through the window. He closes them unable to stop the dizzying trick.

After taking a deep breath he tries again, slower this time.

He takes in his surroundings. Recognizing the dull grey interior with a feeling of distaste. This place is familiar... _it’s my bedroom._ _And I’m in my bed…Why am I in bed?_

He looks down to the clock on the floor- 10:00 am.

_Why the hell am I still in bed at 10?_

He swings his legs off the bed and makes to stand, but stumbles and falls back onto the mattress. Catching himself with...a metal hand??

He staggers over to the bathroom and finds a black sheet covering the mirror. That’s weird. 

Tearing the fabric from the pane, he steps back with a gasp. The person staring back does the same.

It has long tangled hair, black as the pants and long sleeve shirt constraining the bulging muscles beneath. The beginnings of a beard cover his lower jaw and he rubs a hand over the stubble.

The figure brings it’s flesh hand up to graze the growth without thought. Light reflects off of the metal hand and he lifts the hem of the shirt to reveal metal plated skin.

Experimentally he twists the limb while wiggling the fingers.

Something in his mind recognizes this as normal so he shrugs and removes the shirt completely, walking back to the bedroom to get something less suffocating.

He opens the dresser and frowns at the selection; the drawer looks like a black void. Dark cloth with long legs and sleeves.

Digging through till he almost reaches the bottom, he removes a shirt with triumph.

He smiles at the prize and gets dressed, returning to the bathroom.

After cleaning up a bit and gathering up the black cloth, he walks out to go find some food, throwing the fabric in the trash along the way.

* * *

 

“So how’s he doing?” Sam asks, piling hot food on a plate. Clint had made breakfast for everyone. A tradition he’d started for after missions.

A tradition Sam could get behind.

Steve swallows a bite of pancake, eyes missing their usual spark. Natasha knows how much Bucky means to Steve, they all do, and she hopes desperately for him to be alright.

She glances to Clint who nods in silent agreement.

“Not sure till he wakes up. Bruce did everything he could for now though; says he’s stable.”

“In fact,” Tony projects as he strides into the kitchen, “he’s down in the lab right now putting together some brain scanning stuff. I was gonna help but…”

Natasha notices how Steve doesn’t chide Tony for his tone. Tony had made it very clear that he didn’t owe the Winter Soldier any favors. He had an air of ‘I’m only pretending to care because he is a part of the team and I’m obligated to’ which made her want to strangle him.

But instead of getting into it, Steve just pushed around his food, lost in thought.

Suddenly the elevator dinged, the door opening as someone stepped out.

“Morning everyone,” the man said with a warm smile.

The room froze. Sam’s plate sliding out of his grip and crashing to the floor. But nobody flinches at the noise; everyone wide eyed with open mouths.

The Winter Soldier, expert gunsman, legendary assassin, was standing before them clean shaven with brushed hair tied into a bun; scars exposed and peaking through the white tank top and light blue running shorts; metal arm on display.

Steve is the first to break the spell that had them all.

“You...feeling alright, Buck?”

Bucky’s brows contort in confusion and he looks to the others, questioning Steve’s weird behavior, but four sets of eyes stare back. They’re looking at him like he’s lost his mind.

Steve gets up and takes a cautious step forward like Bucky was a butterfly that might fly away.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”


	2. Chapter 2

Banner lets out a sigh and removes his glasses, rubbing the skin covered cartilage beneath, as he steps from the examination room.

“So…?”

Bruce looks up at the source. The super soldier looks about ready to spontaneously combust from the long wait. Blue eyes charged with barely contained anxiety.

Tony doesn’t try to hide his curiosity as he casually takes a step forward to hear what the Bruce has to say.

“It appears he can remember the mission, but not why he was there; the roof, but not what he was doing; the fall, but not what caused the explosion. The craziest thing is...I showed him pictures of each of us and he knows our names. He knows who we are and what we do; he just can’t remember what it is he does."

Bruce lets that all sink in and hunches his shoulders as the previous hour weighs down on him. Bucky had looked so confused at all of the questions but was so warm and kind, even cracking a few jokes. It put Bruce on edge.

Relief floods Steve and he leans on the wall. Pacing in front of the sealed room had been hell; not knowing if Bucky remembered him. ‘Who the hell is Bucky?’ echoing through his racing mind like a broken record.

He looks up at Bruce. The scientist seems off and Steve recognizes the look; a problem he can’t find the answer to. Something is bothering him.

After a second of wondering he realizes what it must be.

“And the Soldier?”

Bruce is pulled from his thoughts at the question. He clears his throat and looks to the closed door behind him, where the most experienced assassin in the world was most likely sitting on a medical examination bed swinging his legs and playing a game on the tablet Bruce had given him.

“That’s the thing...I have no idea. Mind control can’t exactly be quantified- at least not by me.” Natasha can see how hard the admission is. She knows how every problem left unsolved makes Banner feel useless compared to the Hulk.

“Well problem solved then right?” Tony says, patting Banner on the back. “Just a normal everyday super soldier minus the killer. Why don’t we put him on desk duty? He can be our Vanessa.”

Natasha rolls her eyes at the stupid Ghostbusters reference but realizes he made a valid point. Without his memories of the past, what’s stopping him from function as an abnormally strong everyday citizen?

She looks to Bruce but he seems troubled.

“Well, not exactly,” the scientist tries to put words to the uneasy feeling nagging his mind. “Take me for example...say I didn’t know about Hulk. Now put me in the middle of New York City with a million and one things to anger me; honking cars, thieves trying to pickpocket, rude people all pushing and shoving…”

They might be silly things, but Bruce feels his blood pressure rising- skin turning the slightest hue of green.

Tony lowers his head, cursing himself for not realizing how dangerous that would be. He looks to his friend and knows the scientist is imagining tearing the city apart.

Bruce clears his throat, swallowing the anger and fear, and continues in a low voice.

“I am able to avoid them because I know to. I can recognize my triggers and calm myself down. But if I didn’t know...you’d have a 24/7 Hulk.”

The hall is quiet as the information sinks in. Steve stares at the floor, images playing across the white stone like a horror movie. Bucky walking through the diverse streets of Manhattan only to hear someone speaking Russian. The soldier being awakened and wreaking havoc. A gang cornering him in a dark ally, only for blood to flow steady like a river across pavement.

Steve can’t lose Bucky again. His hands clench at his sides.

A movement catching his eye and he glances to the side to see Nat graze a hand over the lower corner of her stomach; lost in thought as she remembers those cold masked eyes meeting hers as a trigger was pulled.

It had happened so fast, yet the sounds often found their way into her nightmares.

The hiss of the silenced gun, the gasp of surprise as pain blossomed- the metalic death tearing through her flesh, and how her mission let out his dying breath as the soldier completed _his_.

Soviet slug, no rifling.

She knows that horrible memory is still with Bucky, and so many more- no matter how deeply hidden at the moment.

Natasha swore to herself the day he was brought back from Hydra’s control that she would never let Bucky Barnes be that monster again. Her silent oath. Becoming enslaved to Hydra once more? Over her dead body.

“So who’s got the list?” Tony says pulling the spy from her thoughts of promises and blood.

Everyone freezes at the words.

“No.”

A thousand battles and a hundred years under ice surge through the hall with a glare that could slice through vibranium. Steve slowly raises his head, a cobra ready to strike at the slightest sound of objection.

“I’ll do it.”

If not for her upbringing in the Red Room, Natasha would have flinched at the poisonous gaze her friend pinned her with.

“Steve,” the agent projects her voice gently, “I can weave a few words into a sentence and see how he reacts. The soldier can’t...awaken...without the entire list.”

Bruce steps forward to back her up.

“I don’t like this any more than you do, but we have to know what’s happening in there.”

Steves expression melts- but not entirely- as he realizes the importance of assessing Bucky’s current mental state.

“Nat, thank you but I should be the one. I’m the least likely to die if he’s triggered.”

In a voice she hadn’t learned from the Russians, but by living with a bunch of super powered men, Natasha deepens her voice to a dangerous note. A motherly tone that leaves no room for argument.

“Unless you have recently become fluent in Russian, you will wait out here.”

Despite the context of their problem, Tony covers his face to conceal a growing smirk. Ice Cap just got burned.

The super soldier blinks at her, but gives in, nodding as Bruce types into a panel next to the door. The wall that had been solid grey a moment ago clears to one way glass.

The remaining ice in Steve’s veins eradicates as he walks closer to the window like wall.

Bucky’s sitting on the examination bed, just as Bruce had left him, waiting patiently. Steve is dumbfounded by the relaxed posture and steady bob to his head. It was like looking through a window into their old apartment in Brooklyn; his best friend humming a tune and moving to the rhythm.

A few more buttons were pressed and the rough melody of the Howling Commandos pub songs fill the hall.

Tony couldn’t help but feel a growing lump in his throat at the sight of Steve peering through the glass. The pained, bittersweet smile nearly breaking it.

Steve is so entranced he doesn’t notice Nat run a hand across his shoulders as she walks past him to the door. He wants to stay in this moment forever; despite the strain it puts on his heart.

The yearning to just go back _home_ to his era- no aliens or twisted governments- with his friend- no Winter Soldier or brainwashed torture- is stronger than ever.

But it’s a foolish dream.

This might not be his home, but it’s his reality. And he will make it out with Bucky in one piece or die trying.

* * *

 

The odd sounding hums cease as Natasha closes the heavy metal door behind her. She pulls two chairs to the center of the room and sitting down, points to the other kindly.

James Buchanan Barnes lifts his large form from the bed and settles comfortably across from her with a smile.

“Hey, Widow what’s up?”

Natasha blinks, still not used to this...different side of Bucky. She doesn’t know this man. Doesn’t know this man who brings sparkles into eyes that have seen so much darkness. And she definitely doesn’t know this man who ties his long hair back or allows abused skin and metal show.

“Not much,” she replies, trying to keep a laid back tone, “how did the tests go?”

She notices how his metal arm shifts on his leg, almost like he doesn’t know what to do with it. She’s always wondered about the limb. Is it heavy? Doesn’t it get cold? How the hell was it attached?

But now isn’t the time for questions that he probably- hopefully- doesn’t remember the answers to.

“Fine, I guess. Bruce is being nice about it all but I don’t get why he keeps showing me pictures and stuff.” Natasha catches the twinge of frustration in his reply.

“Do you know why he’s asking you so many questions?”

Bucky narrows his eyes, searching for an answer. All he can remember is falling and feeling like he needed to talk to someone.

“Because...I fell and hurt my head? I guess that’s true since I can’t recall much.”

Natasha nods and changes the subject, getting an idea. Before entering the room, Bruce had informed her that there was a possibility that Bucky didn’t even remember Russian. He suggested that she test his proficiency before the trigger words.

“Do you want to hear a story?”

* * *

 

Natasha launches into a silly tale that Clint told his children one of the times she had visited the farm house. It was the only happy story she could think of- her teachers at the Red Room hadn’t been fond of bedtime stories to say the least.

Bucky relaxes into his chair with a playful smile on his face at the hawk searching far and wide for blueberries to take to it’s friend the brown bear.

As she speaks, Natasha slides into her mother tongue. Stepping into that familiar water one toe at a time.

The man before her took no notice of the hardened syllables and continued to listen, eyes widening at the hawk encountering an angry vulture.

Keeping her voice even and calm, she braces herself, as she injects the first of the poison laced words.

His brow furrows and he looks down at the floor. Breaking eye contact for the first time since she entered the room.

A voice whispers in her ear. Steve’s voice- telling her to stop. To retreat.

But Natasha came in for answers, and she isn’t leaving without them.

She uses another word, this one penetrating what she realizes now as a paper thin barrier between Bucky Barnes and the Winter Soldier. His pearl teeth grind, face contorting in pain, as he collapses in on himself. Metal and flesh clutch his head and he trembles slightly.

Natasha hurries over to the set of metal drawers and retrieves a vial, loading the syringe in her other hand.

  
The spider makes her way back to the danger slowly, muscles tensing, already mapping the perfect way to sink the needle into his jugular.

He gasps, head jerking up. The Winter Soldier’s cold eyes flicker, tearing through the peaceful blue of Bucky’s.

She rips the plastic guard from the syringes tip with her teeth, spitting it out, and positions her thumb over the flat suppressor as a violent tremor courses through the soldier’s body. But then he abruptly stills, and Natasha realizes that every muscle in his body is waiting for the next trigger word.

Staying silent, Natasha approaches him from behind. Neck perfectly exposed. But when no more words come, Bucky sits back into his chair breathing normally.

He looks for his friend but she isn’t across from him anymore.

Swiftly, Natasha slides the syringe into a back pocket and walks back to her seat.

Bucky stares at her with a confused look.

“Well?” he says.

Not knowing what to say, not knowing what state his mind is in, she asked smoothly, “Well...what?”

His eyes go wide in disbelief.

“Did the bear get his blueberries??”

* * *

 

“This is bad,” Natasha breathes out after closing the door behind her.

Tony lets out a huff of agreement as Banner begins to pace again.

“That’s a severe understatement. This is…” he runs a hand through his hair in frustration, “this could be extremely dangerous.”  
  
“He didn’t even know he was losing control. That must be an effect of the amnesia right?” Natasha asks, looking to Steve for confirmation.

He nods, “When he came out of the Soldier before...he’d always remember what had happened.”

Natasha reaches into her pocket and looks at the syringe. If Bucky was put back into the real world alone and was triggered fully...one syringe wouldn’t stop him. Could they stop him?

The Black Widow had a very short list of people that scare her; and the Winter Soldier is at the top. And why wouldn’t he be? The Asset had not only held his own, but bested each Avenger he’s fought.

“It’s awful to say but…” Bruce gathers enough courage to look Cap in the eye, “...Bucky with all of his memories is safer.”

Steve doesn’t meet the gaze as his eyes are still glued to the clean shaven man stretching his arms with a yawn. The stranger’s face returns to rest in a purely relaxed smile that Steve hasn’t seen since the 1940’s.

“Safer for us,” he speaks to the glass, “but what about him?"

* * *

 

Tony sits in a chair watching as Bruce rushes to prepare x-rays and data.

After the little ‘experiment’ with Natasha, Bruce had gone into the examination room and asked Bucky if he needed anything or had any questions; not sure what to say to someone who didn’t know he was teetering on the edge of being a killer.

Bucky had paused and seemed to take stock of his body before reporting that he had this uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, that felt familiar but weird.

Extremely worried, Bruce had prepared to do some tests on his intestines until Steve pressed a button on the intercom.

“He's probably hungry.”

After checking the med results, Bruce confirmed that he should be starving. With a tilt of her head, Natasha had led Bucky out with promises of dinner.

Cap had offered a smile and nod that he’d be right there when Bucky turned back to him with a look of uncertainty. That smile had faded as the super soldier faced Bruce and Tony.

“I called T’challa. His top scientist will be calling soon to give any help,” his perfect face had looked worn and tired. He’d leveled his ice blue eyes on Tony, “And please don’t...just… let her help. If you refuse to help Bucky, do it for me.”

From his place on the chair, Tony still can’t get that stare out of his head. Steve had looked...desperate. Desperate enough that Tony has been wracking through his brain on everything he knew about Bucky. He must be missing something, Steve doesn’t hand out that kind of vulnerable emotion for just anyone.

A ring sounds, cutting through his thoughts and causing Bruce to drop the papers he’d been shuffling through. With a glance over his shoulder at Tony, Bruce types into his tablet where a live video chat opens.

“Give me one second,” the accented voice from the tablet said.

The two men watch with their mouths hanging open as a slender hand reaches through the glass screen and then another. Bruce, eyes wide, places the tablet on the ground just as the hands grab onto the edges of the tablet and a figure lifts through.

Rising to her full youthful height, Tony knows instantly that this teenager is anything but. Her entire form is solid as a true body, the only indication that the woman standing before him is not truly present, but in Wakanda, is the slight transparency of her skin and the fluidity of her motions.

The ghost crafted from science and brilliance smiles, a twinkle in her eyes not lost through the complex coding that had brought her into Tony’s lab. At a loss for words at the phenomena before him, Tony tries to come up with something to say.

“I didn’t know Wakanda had such advanced technology,” is all he can blurt out.

But the smile just grew as she beams with pride, and Tony knows. He knows that he was in the presence of a genius; true and pure.  

“This?” she extends an arm to admire the transparency, “this is just a little project of mine I completed as a few years ago. Was not difficult.”

She straightens suddenly remembering something, “I apologize. I am Shuri, lead scientist in Wakanda,” bending into a respectful bow, “and sister to King T’challa.”

The words echo throughout the room. Sister? Funny that T’challa had left out that information.

Bruce gapes at the princess before composing himself and stepping forward, “I cannot thank you enough for meeting with us, your majesty.”

A laugh softer than a summer breeze fills the air, “It is my pleasure, and please- Shuri is fine. I prefer my lab to the throne room, that is T’challa’s world.”

But then her smile dulls and eyes soften, “My brother informed me that Steve Roger’s companion has sustained an injury?”

Bruce nods, leading her over to the brain scans and medical results, as he explains the situation. Tony remains a step back as he listens. Shuri closes her eyes at the news. A look of mourning, Tony realizes.

She remained quiet, allowing Bruce to run through everything he was able to do. When he was done, the princess analyzes the scans. Still facing the screens, she spoke.

“Why are you so silent, Mr. Stark? From what I have read, you have the heart of a lion. Do you not share that sense of protection and pride towards this man that makes you an Avenger?”

Turning her back to the screens, she faces the billionaire who if not for living with Natasha, would have shrunk back from the gaze pinning him, analyzing his every breath.

He tries to keep his tone lighthearted against the coldness of his words, “I don’t hate the dude...it’s just a little hard to help the guy who killed my parents, ya know?”

Bruce tenses from beside the princess whose face hardens, allowing no emotion to seep through. A defense against the pain just as Tony’s humor is for him.

“Yes. I know what it is like to have a parent murdered by the Winter Soldier.”

The thickness of her accent drives the words straight through his soul as he realizes too late who he is talking to. It wasn’t just T’challa who lost something in the crosshairs of that day.

Shuri does not allow the tightness in his chest to dissipate before continuing.

“When it happened, that awful day when the sun was imprisoned by the clouds, I wondered how anyone could do it. Could take a king from his people. A father from his children. Until I read the story of Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes and I gained clarity. I read the files, translated that awful red book, and hacked into every video that the Russians had kept on ‘The Asset’. And I have not slept through the night since. He is a victim. I will do everything in my power to heal this man.”

Seizing his frozen hand, Shuri drops an object into it. Tony is too lost in her words to be amazed that this ghost has a solid form.

“Ignorance is the greatest enemy of any scientist, Mr. Stark. How long will you stay in the dark?”

And with that, Shuri turns her back to him. She turns her attention to Bruce who stands just as still as Tony.

“Now, Doctor Banner.”

He blinks a few times before straightening.

“I was hoping to bring Mr. Barnes to Wakanda to heal him. Unfortunately, I cannot operate. The concussion has caused the already damaged brain to strain. I fear that any attempt to remove the trigger words or Hydra’s control could kill him.”

“What should we do then?”

“I suggest that you try not to force the memories back as it could have a cataclysmic effect. Try to allow his brain to naturally regain the memories. It will not be pretty. I would make sure he is watched to prevent injury to himself or others.”

The scientists exchange goodbyes and Shuri sits onto the edge of the tablet, legs disappearing into its depths.

“Remember, the mind can only take so much. And let’s just say...this man should not be alive.”

Tony doesn’t have to look up to know her unyielding eyes are trained on him once more.

And without another word, Shuri, princess and genius, jumps through the tablet.

* * *

 

“There’s plenty of food, help yourself,” Clint says with a smile as Bucky walks in. Only through his spy training is he able to resist looking too long at the strange sight.

Clint never thought he’d see the day when a lazy smile would rest on Bucky’s face. A smile he’d seen only a handful of times, only when looking at Steve.

Natasha and Steve take seats at the island counter as Clint describes a movie he wants them all to watch tonight. A new science fiction film in a series about a bunch of guys in robes with light sticks? Steve stops listening as he watches his best friend stand on his tiptoes to look into one of the cabinets.

Light streaming in from the windows cast shadows across his raised flesh, his metal arm the sun’s echo.

“Hey, do you guys have any pasta?” Bucky asks over his shoulder as he continues rummaging through the packed shelf. He’s never seen so much food in his life...at least he doesn’t think he has.

No answer.

Lowering himself back on his feet, Bucky turns around. Three sets of wide eyes stare back, and for the second time this morning, they look at him like he’s crazy.

“Hello? Are you all alright?” he says with uncertainty. What the hell is going on?

Finally Natasha clears her voice and answers him. “Upper left in the back. Blue box.”

He follows the directions and seizes the box with a triumphant smile. With his back turned as he begins to prepare the water pot, Clint shoots a worried look at the other super soldier. But Steve, Natasha notices, has his eyes on his friend’s massive form.

And she doesn’t have to wonder why. She assumes that hearing his best friend speak in perfect Russian without noticing, and understanding Natasha’s equally non-English reply is slightly jarring.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to write this... had to finish up my other fic.  
> Hope you like it <3

Bruce and Tony step into the kitchen, sunlight flowing through the floor to ceiling windows and filling them both with some much needed warmth.

The elevator ride up had been silent; Shuri’s words too loud in their minds to speak.

Despite Bucky currently shoving steaming hot pasta into his mouth, he’s first to notice the two men enter the room, even sooner than the other two spies. Bruce almost misses a step as Bucky pins them with a terrifying predatory stare, almost as if analyzing if they were a threat, but then shakes his head with a confused look and smiles widely, returning to his food.

Then Nat looks over, Clint, and finally Steve. The later two having faces showing remnants of shock.

“Oh, you wanted to speak with Clint, Steve, and I didn’t you, Bruce?” Natasha was grateful for how quickly the scientist caught on, not allowing the briefest moment of confusion to show.

“If you wouldn’t mind. How about in the fifth floor conference room?”

Wanting nothing to do with explaining what just happened with the Wakandan genius to the three, Tony muttered, “I got some things to work on in the lab."

No one was more shocked than Tony at the enthusiastic “Can I come?” from the table. Steve could tell Tony was trying to think of a way to refuse through the haze of surprise so he quickly interjected.

“Tony would be happy to let you tag along. Wouldn’t you?” With his back to Bucky, Steve turned to the billionaire with that lethal stare. Tony really wished that didn’t become a habit. He might not be afraid of Steve, but the look was more than unnerving.  

After a grumble of forced agreement, Tony turned and started through the halls, not waiting to see if the other man followed.

 

* * *

 

Whatever senses slumbered in the murderer must have picked up on Tony’s buzzing mind, because he stayed silent on the walk to the mechanics lab. Casting a discrete sidelong glance every now and then to make sure the impossibly quiet man was still there, Tony saw Bucky looking at the glass enclosed rooms and large social event areas they passed, eyes full of awe.

Nothing calculating in the crystal blue orbs. Just childish curiosity. The loose bun bounced with every cheerful stride, and were it not for the way his feet angled with each step to skillfully absorb any sound, Tony could’ve seen past the monster’s nature. See that this was not monster at all, just a normal person, curious about the world. Tony stopped looking after the thought entered his mind.

_He killed my mom he killed my mom he killed my mom._

When they passed the threshold into the lab, Tony went straight to one of the organized worktables, allowing his mind to slip into engineer mode as he clenched his fists. Numbers and equations flashed across his eyes as he surveyed the objects and settled onto a stool with a sigh of comfort. That familiar feeling of purpose dulling his emotions better than any scotch or whiskey.

Todays distraction was an intricate gun-like object from Falcon’s wings. It was developed by the U.S. Military and damaged during Sam’s first interaction with the Winter Soldier. It felt like ages ago that Sam, Nat, and Cap had fought the Soldier that day. Tony would never forget receiving the call from Steve in the hospital.

He might have been on the edge of death, but all his friend could say through ragged breaths of a collapsed lung was, “He’s alive.”

After falling into the bay, Falcon’s wings had been totaled and although Tony made him a new suit with his own superior tech, he had kept the salvageable parts to look through. Tony knew what they all were and after dissecting each, had repurposed the parts. But this stupid cylinder gun thing was new, even for him. And if there’s one thing Tony hates, it’s a piece of tech he doesn’t understand.

“You need some help with that?”

So engrossed in wrestling with the object, Tony startled violently on his stool at the soft yet deep voice from across the table that had sliced through his concentration.

In the blink of an eye, Bucky jolted up with an outstretched hand, catching the piece as it descended from Tony’s hand; even before he realized it had left his palm. Bucky stands back up gracefully and turns it in his flesh hand carefully.

“Sorry,” he says without lifting his eyes from the device. Tony clears his throat but before he can make a snippy remark, Bucky meets his eyes.

“This a U.S. Military made compacted Steyr SPP?”

Tony isn’t fast enough to mask the surprise in his voice, “Yah it is. How’d you…”

It’s not like the military labels its super secret weapons with make and model, or even have markings tying it to the United States.

“It’s the actuator isn't it?” He mumbles in concentration, not waiting for an answer, “The latches on these things get stuck sometimes after being submerged in water. All you gotta do is…” Bucky faded off as he positioned it just so in his flesh palm, and with his thumb at a precise angle, applied pressure with his finger nail. And the hatch popped open.

“There you go.”

Tony let the heaviness rest into his hand, but didn’t move for a moment, still in shock. But Bucky, who seemed wholly unphased by the complexity of what he had just done, was already back in his stool. Tony allowed himself a moment to wonder just how much Hydra had taught him to be intimately familiar with such a rare mechanism that had stumped even him.

As his initial shock dissipated, Tony noticed Bucky absentmindedly rubbing at the mangled battlefield of his shoulder as he looked around the room again with eyes of insatiable curiosity.

“It giving you trouble?” Tony said monotony after clearing his throat.

His ministrations halted and the wisps of hair not contained by the bun bobbed in tandem with the nod.

“Yah,” he said thickly, “since I woke up it’s been sore and... sometimes really painful. I just thought-”

He stopped mid sentence with his head down in concentration. Tony tensed from across the room, taking a few steps back, certain that a memory was unraveling and the Soldier would come out to play.

Channeling his inner Black Widow, Tony took a final step to the counter behind him and seized the iron bands, snapping them onto his wrists. He readied himself to activate them; a touch of the sensor and his suit would be around him in a matter of seconds.

“...I just- I thought that since none of you have said anything… then maybe it’s normal for me to- it’s normal to be in pain like this? I mean it feels familiar… the ache, at least I… think so. I was going to ask Steve about it later.”

Tony relaxed at the admission, feeling like the dumbest genius in the world. What he’d thought was an indicator of the Soldier- the scattered talking and tight muscles- was something else entirely. Guilt. And not only that, but he’d completely ignored how frequently Bucky would rub at the broad shoulder with gritted teeth.

_He killed my mom he killed my mom he killed my mom_

“It alright if I take a look?” His engineer brain filling in words despite his unwillingness. The desire to see and feel and fix was Tony’s default; always had been.

Bucky nodded and sat up in his chair as Tony carried a stool beside him and sat down. He was about to just grab the arm but stopped, letting his own calloused hands ghost over that awful red star. He’d never been so close to the prosthetic.

But prosthetics are made to help people, and at this proximity, where he could see the seared bulging muscles and viciously scarred flesh, Tony realized that helpfulness was definitely not on Hydra’s list of concerns.

Tony took note of the unmistakable pattern of scars running between the roughly healed burned patches and disappearing beneath the white shirt. Four distinct jagged lines; a mark of defiance.

Tony had to take a few breaths as he failed to stop the mental image of Bucky using his own fingernails to mutilate the tissue. As if they were an ancient language of pain, Tony could read the desperation etched there. The refusal to become a monster.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want,” Bucky’s voice cut through his vision. “I’m not sure how this all happened… I’ve been trying to remember. Having a metal arm doesn’t seem to be the norm, I’ve noticed.”

Tony feigned a laugh to match Bucky’s, unease building in his core at what must be brutal memories that Bucky was forgetting for now. Leaning forward, Tony’s mind began analyzing the intricate build before him, hands still hovering over the vibranium. He stopped his inquisitive brain that was wondering how many lives had been ended with this metal, how often blood had to be scraped from each divit, when the thought rose that a vibranium arm wasn’t the deadliest part of the man seated before him.

Keeping his mind detached from the gruesome canvas of skin, Tony shook his head and willed his hands to touch the connection point where skin fused with metal. If he could just see where those wires disappeared he could-

“Я уступаю”                       _I yield_

Bucky stands abruptly, the words like poison on his lips. He doesn’t hear the chair clattering to the floor as he stumbles backward. Tony startles, hand instantly hovering over the bands of cool metal still on his wrists. But something makes him hesitate and take a cautious step toward the man who was bracing himself against the tabletop ledge with a hand of white knuckles and eyes that blink too fast.

“You alright there?” Tony said, voice unwavering yet barely a whisper. He still wasn’t sure how the Soldier worked, but he had a feeling that the assassin could sense fear.

No response as shaky breaths rattled Bucky’s massive form; no words of English or Russian escaping his trembling lips. Tony, being intimately familiar with the signs and symptoms of a ptsd attack, knew to stay out of reach while speaking softly to help ground him. But that didn’t seem to be working; his quickening breaths indicating the quick descent into hyperventilation.

But, Tony got an idea.

“Hey Jarvis?” He said, knowing Bucky couldn’t hear Tony speak to the ceiling. When he was done, the engineer took another step forward, raising his voice so as to be heard through the panic.

“Bucky? Steve- remember him? He’s on his way to you. Steve Rogers, your best buddy. He’ll be here real soon.”

The trick worked and Tony felt his body relax as Bucky’s did. He looks up with brows laced in confusion.

“I remembered something,” he says in a small voice. _Oh shit...Steve you better hurry your star- spangled ass._

“What’d you see?”

He looks down at his arm with the same confusion and Tony could almost see his brain straining to understand whatever he saw.

“I- I think when my arm was removed. There were lab coats and… and a saw and straps and… a metal table. There was a- an electric saw and…” Bucky was visibly shaking against the table, fear gripping his voice. The table began to crumble under the pressure of vibranium.  
  
“Woah there take it easy, it was just a...daydream,” Tony almost slaps himself for how stupid that sounded. Bucky didn’t seem to notice the weak response, he just shook his head adementaly.

“No, it was a memory. I could feel it… it _hurt_ . But that makes no sense. Doctors… they put you to sleep during amputation… don’t they?”  
  
Tony’s stomach drops as he realizes that Bucky was awake during the operation. During the laceration of tendon and splintering of bone.

His vision goes fuzzy at the scene playing in his mind. Blood and screaming numbing his senses. _I gotta get out of here_.

He rushes out of the room mumbling some ridiculous explanation for running like a child. The unmistakable silhouette of Cap is suddenly infront of him, asking if he’s ok and what happened. Tony just waves the large form away and hopes his words to go see Bucky were coherent enough.

Tony pushes- practically falls- into the nearest door, another lab, and notices a startled Bruce looking up from a handful of scans that must be Bucky’s.

The scientist hadn't seen Tony so flustered in a long time. The billionaire genius paced back and forth sporadically, one hand bracing his midsection, the other covering his meticulously groomed jaw. Yet, Bruce doesn’t ask what’s wrong. He knows from all the time spent together that Tony would speak his mind when he could.

So, Bruce turned to the man and rested his weight on the wall behind him, ready to hear it all.

“He- he,” Tony runs a hand through his hair, still in constant motion. “He was a wake, Bruce. Through the operations. And if through those, then I don’t know what else. I… I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me that it’s Hydra and of course they wouldn’t be… giving out mimosas and painkillers but I thought- I thought at least some- I don’t know- some general anesthesia or something!”

Dr. Banner removed his glasses, absorbing the information and silently taking note of his friend’s sudden change of heart regarding the man Steve had told them so much about.

The flash drive suddenly felt heavy in Tony’s pocket.

“He was- I mean he was just a kid, Bruce. They turned him into a monster and he’s been paying the price... everyone’s been blaming him.”

Images of Peter fill his head

‘ _And if anything happened to you… I feel like that’s on me’_

God is that how Cap had felt for all those years?

“ _I’ve_ been blaming him.”

 

* * *

 

Stepping into his bland room, Bucky was light with pure contentment. Aching calves and bursting lungs, yet he was overflowing with happiness.

After Steve had calmed him down, convincing him that the memory must have been a hallucination from the accident (which makes total sense when he thought about it), Bucky had asked for somewhere he could run. His agitated neurons yearned to exert some energy and take the edge off to clear his mind.

Steve had given him directions to a running track on a lower level; triple checking that he was alright and could find his way there and back to his room.

When he was done fussing, Bucky had told him to go do some mothering on Tony and make sure the genius was alright.

Now, as Bucky opened his cabinet drawer, the wide smile slipped a fraction at what faced him.

Dark shirt, dark pants, dark everything. Even his underwear were void of color.

The sweat drenched blue and white clothes he was currently stuck to seemed to be all the light he owned.

 _What is_ with _all this? I gotta get some other stuff to wear._

With a disappointed huff, he grabbed two pieces from the top, noticing that they somehow didn’t have a scent like what he’d picked up on from the others. Even now, drenched in sweat that slid into his metal arm, he didn’t smell like anything. _Weird._

Tucking the garments under an arm, he strode to the bathroom door, peeling his shirt off and folding it with one hand to set it down beside the dresser. But when his hand was wrapped around the handle, he halted and turned around to the closed door of his bedroom.

Not sure what he was looking for or why he’d stopped, Bucky turned back to the bathroom with a shake of his head when a knock sounded on the wood behind him. He tensed, unwillingly taking note of the window as a possible escape route, until a charismatic voice came through.

“Hey man it’s Clint, brought ya that videogame I was talking about this morning. Mind if I come in?”

Bucky opens the door and Clint can see his eyes light up at the game in his gloved hand, but then he throws a long glance behind him.

“I was about to hop in the shower, just ran a few miles. Make yourself comfortable, I won’t be long.”

Opening the door wider, it was all Clint could do to walked through.

Without the usual uniform of black long-sleeved shirt and black lethar strapped jacket, Clit could see everything. Only, the bare skin wasn’t bare, but covered in scars. Every inch a canvas of roughly healed flesh, the only area untouched being the grey metal. The master archer felt guilty for looking since he knew the ‘normal’ Bucky would literally kill him, hadn’t even let Steve see.

But, he couldn’t not look, the man before him was a warrior masterpiece.

Clint was no stranger to scars and had collected more than his fair share, but this… most of them didn’t look to be scratches or healed wounds from battle (and considering none of the Avengers had been able to land more than a scratch on the Winter Soldier…) Clint didn’t think he wanted to know how he got all of these.

Looking past the mangled flesh, Clint was faced with the solid build of a honed assassin, he should know. Muscles toned and bulging more than the average spy’s, yet every joint flexible and ready to spring into action, even his hands looked able to kill.

Suddenly he understood Ant Man’s reaction to seeing Cap. _Magnificent specimen indeed._ Clint was a man very solitly placed in his love for women, yet even the straightest man alive would admire the body before him. He would think this creature a god if not for having fought beside one multiple times.

Clearing his throat he nodded to the unplugged tv and gaming console that every bedroom in the tower came with, courtesy of Tony.

“Sure, take your time. I’ll get this all hooked up.”

Flashing a smile and thumbs up, Bucky disappeared into the bathroom. From where he had bent down to the console, Clint stood to take in the room for the first time.

Almost as bland as Cap’s. _Must be a frozen soldier thing_ . But then he realized Sam’s looks the same. _Nah, just a military thing._

He pulls the tv closer and jumps onto the bed since it’s the only furniture in the sparse room. Landing on a hard object, he swivels to the side in record speed, spy instincts taking over.

But Clint laughs inwardly when he uncovered a harmless book from beneath the dark covers.

The worn out leather of the small journal soft in his ungloved hands, he couldn’t fight the building curiosity and he opens it, the spine invitingly lax. Remembering his stupid reflex a moment ago, a smile lifts his lips.

A smile that disappears as he reads the pages.

Wrinkled from the pressure each word had been scrawled onto the thick paper, barely contained by the black lines and margins.

Horror rises with every desperate letter. Quickly looking to the bathroom door Clint stills. When he hears the water still running, he fishes his phone out of the many pickets of his vest and takes pictures of every page without stopping to read more.

Suddenly the water stops and the squeek of a glass shower door fills his ears. If it were not for his training and time with Natasha, he would never have been able to return the book beneath the covers, shove his phone away, slide the videogame into the player, and settle onto the floor with a controller in hand- all before Bucky emerged.

Steam flowed from the open door and Bucky with it; hair wrapped beneath a towel and dressed in the customary dark linen. With a nod of approval at the rearranged furniture, he walked over to the bedside table, opening a small box on top.

“You can turn it on, I’ll be just a sec.”

Clint pressed the on button and didn’t pretend to hide his interest as the master assassin withdrew a small stick with a soft end from the box. With a delicate hand, Bucky slides it throughout the many caverns of the metal arm.

His training must have kicked in because without lifting his towel covered head, Bucky spoke in mumbled concentration.

“I remember that the arm is waterproof, but it feels weird as hell. Makes it even heavier.”

Clint nodded, knowing the other man could sense the movement; yet he remained quiet. What do you even say to that?

_“Oh yah super sorry to hear the metal arm that was welded onto you is givin ya trouble. Hope it didn’t bother you too much while you were mind controlled and couldn’t get the water out as you killed a bunch of people for Hydra. Wanna play some video games?”_

Placing the tool back where it belonged, Bucky turned with a smile.

“Ready to play?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of blood and torture in this one so I'd skip if you're really squeamish ;)
> 
> Hope you like it <3

It was getting late and Tony could feel exhaustion beginning to slow his lazy strides as he walked through the halls for an elevator. Passing one of the lounges, something caught his eye, causing him to backstep.

A rare moment of vulnerability saw Steve hunched, hands in his pockets, squinting at the sunset that sank below the sea of skyscrapers and brick. Tony politely cleared his throat, knowing he couldn’t go to bed until the day’s events were discussed.

“Thank you.”

Steve hadn’t turned, and remained so still that Tony thought he’d imagined the words.

“Come again?”

This time the larger man did turn, and levied a tired gaze upon his friend.

“For taking him to the lab. He was so… proud to have gotten to help with one of your projects. Said you were even going to help with his arm.”

Tony shrugged, not letting the emotion of Steve’s words settle in beside his own exhaustion.

“I uh– I didn’t know he was so into tech.”

Steve gets a far off look and speaks through a somber smile, “Buck never wanted to go to war, only did it to protect me. He wanted to be an engineer... Howard was his hero.” Tony froze at the admission. “You don’t even…”

But Steve stops himself with a shake of the head and returns his blue eyes to the darkening sky.

“What?” Tony blurts out.

“You don’t even know how much it killed him inside... to find out what he’d done to your father,” he cleared his throat. “That’s why– that’s why Hydra made him do it. It wasn’t just about getting the remaining serum for the other Winter Soldiers… having him kill Howard was the final test of the mind control. It was the closest equivalent they could get to making him kill me.”

Tony didn’t know what to say. His racing brain couldn’t put any words together. He wanted to deny everything Steve was saying, but his heart could detect no lies.

“Bucky… he saw your dad as everything that was right in the world. He used to say to me whenever I was down ‘As long as there are people like him… we have a shot. There will be a future because of him; one with flying cars and less diseases… and no more war.”

The two stayed quiet for a long time, both staring at nothing and everything all at once.

Steve didn’t notice Tony quietly leave with renewed energy in each stride out the door.

He didn’t even notice the crystal tear sliding down his own face.

* * *

 

Natasha couldn’t contain the sigh of pleasure at the euphorically warm ankle high slippers that now encapsulated her mangled feet.

Sure she hadn’t continued training as a ballerina after escaping the Red Room, yet the damage done after years on pointe had left their mark.

Bulging ankles and calloused toes– the signature of every pink leotarded dancer– that had served her well as a spy. They might have saved her life during impossible climbs, or helped end just as many with rock solid kicks to the throat, but they still got cold.

The slippers were a gift that little spider had gotten for her when she’d laughed at his one of the days he was visiting, and he discovered she’d never had a pair.

None of the Black Widow’s possessions were soft white fluff– but black and sharp and lethal.

She shook her head to quiet the voice inside, one of her many instructors, that was berating her for divulging in such weak minded things.

With a huff, Natasha closed her weapons cabinet, seeing her reflection in the freshly polished guns and knives, returned her earrings to the small jewelry box at her bedside, and headed to the corner of her room with a folder from the table in hand.

Settling into the light green chair, she flicked the reading light on while opening the file, and began memorizing the faces and histories of their next targets. A Hydra cell that was hiding in Northern Canada.

At least it wouldn’t be a long flight in the Quinjet.

“Nat?”

A barely audible whisper floated from above her head. Without pausing her flow of reading, she lifted a toned arm above her head. Signaling the okay.

She didn’t look up from her papers as her friend dropped from the hole in her ceiling and replaced the cover in one fluid motion. Only when she could tell he was just standing there with a loss for words, did the spy lift her gaze.

Clint was never at a loss for words.

“What is it?” Despite the bluntness of her question, the words were soft towards her oldest companion. Tony often poked fun that he couldn’t decide if they were an old married couple or siblings.

But both Agents knew the truth. They didn’t need a name or title; they understood each others darkness, and either would take a bullet for the other. Simple as that.

As a skilled reader of others emotions, Natasha was confused to find too many to decipher pulling at Clint’s face. Sliding a hand into his pocket, he withdrew a phone and held it out like a poisoned blade.

“You need to see this.”

Natasha hesitated before palming the thin device, for she caught the impossibly subtle change of his voice.

For only someone as familiar with Clint as she would notice the undeniable horror clinging to every syllable.

* * *

 

Tony had never been glad for Pepper to be on a business trip, but as he injected Shuri’s flash drive into his tablet and repositioned his wireless headphones, he was immensely grateful to treverse its contents alone.

He was expecting a display of multiple video files as per usual with a usb, but his screen went dark, and after a moment a white Play icon illuminated his face.

With an unsteady breath he pressed it with an index finger. The icon disappeared and the screen returned to darkness. But suddenly, a voice filled his ears.

“Ignorance is the greatest enemy of any scientist, Mr. Stark. How long will you stay in the dark?”

And then it began.

Recording after recording; Tony watched it all. The brutal training, the cell they made him sleep in, the roughly constructed cryotube that when he was removed left the man’s body convulsing with intense shivers and lungs contracting near hyperventilation. He watched what must have been the first years as Bucky was defiant to his captors.

He resisted and refused to submit. Refused to become the killer they desired, even when it meant the kind of torture no one should be capable of coming back from.

And yet, in every video, he resisted.

Strung up to a wall with thick metal chains and daggers sunk deep in his chest, coated in dirt and blood, he muttered insults at his handlers. Called them weak and questioned the intelligence of their mothers.

A frail old woman was chained to a chair in the room’s corner, bare feet coated in the ever expanding layer of blood flowing from Bucky. A Hydra commander handed her a book from which she recited aloud, one by one, words in English then Russian. The commander would then shout “repeat!” to his beaten hostage.

But he refused. And the dagger’s were twisted. It continued like this for some time until the commander got bored and cracked a baton against bone.

He eventually became so enraged, that he bent down into Bucky’s face that hung limply from pain and exhaustion. Tony jolted against his propped up pillows as Bucky, with impossible speed jerked his head up, teeth bared like an animal and clamped down. The woman in the corner shrieked and the commander shouted incomprehensible curses through screams as he stumbled back, feet splashing in the wet floor.

Bucky spit out a chunk of flesh; blood and gore flowing down his chin to splatter on the ground and mix with his own. And the screen went dark.

But before Tony could recover, the next recording flickered to life revealing a blindfolded and muzzled Bucky. The woman in the corner spoke the words again, a slight tremor to her voice.

This time when he disobeyed, a metal rod was slammed into the mask and his head slammed against the wall he was pinned to.

The mask was only removed for feeding, an event that took place in one of the labs after the scientists were finished meddling with his arm. This time, the meddling was performed by two men cloaked in white flowing jackets, a mockery to the position.

One poured alcohol onto the mangled shoulder as the other sliced through newly formed scars so he could adjust a piece of wire that disappeared under the plates of vibranium.

Tony breathed a sigh of relief at the seemingly unconscious state of Bucky's restrained body, relieved that he has been put to sleep for the operation. Until one of the men moved and the lights reflected off a steady stream of tears, rushing around the contours of the muzzle. Agony trapped inside the eyes of a very present James Buchanan Barnes.

After they were done, one of the men left the room while the other removed the mask and handed him a paper plate with what looked to Tony like inmate food; all the nutrients needed to survive, all while tasting like shit.

Only, he didn’t touch it, or even strain as usual, against the special chains that allowed just enough length to feed himself. The scientist, who must have believed the arm was malfunctioning after days of procedures, grabbed a piece of the ‘food’ and held it up to Bucky.

And although Tony could see it coming, could see it in Bucky’s lethal glare, Tony still jolted once more as he latched onto the outstretched hand; a growl escaping clenched teeth.

Screaming louder than the commander had, the scientist fled the room, cradling his hand as he slammed the door behind him.

But just as it had closed, the thick door burst open and four handlers stormed in. After releasing each limb from the feeding restraints, they fastened thick cuffs, binding both arms and legs together.

Tony wondered why they took such precautions when it was obvious that it would be a miracle for Bucky to even stand on his own in this condition.

Once they were pleased with their work, two grabbed his upper body and two his legs, and together they carried him to his cell. Paying no mind to the jostling of wounds or healing of bones.

The camera flicked to Bucky’s cell just in time to see him being thrown onto the floor like a sack of potatoes. They stood him up and removed the leg cuffs, then left without a single word.

Once the door closed, Bucky fell against the wall behind him, unable to support his weight on injured legs. The concrete wall must have been freezing, being in Siberia and all. Tony doubted, by the faint tremor of shivers, that his cell of concrete and dirt was heated.

But he didn’t seem to care as he slid down the wall, even as the lacerations on his back from a previous nights whipping were being rubbed.

He positioned the metal arm to rest on the mixture of dirt and filth that was his floor, grimacing through clenched teeth as he did. The weight off his shoulder seemed the closest thing to comfort in that hell.

With the other hand, Bucky pushed at the strain in his neck—smearing the clotting blood in each slice across his shoulder—and surveyed his body. Checking all the wounds as if he were taking stock.

Tony recognized the action, had seen Steve do it after every mission. It was a task made easier by the tattered fabric Tony assumed was supposed to be pants; the only thing besides his own blood shielding him from the cold.

Despite the headphones, Tony leaned closer to the tablet to hear a ragged voice whisper into the loneliness.

“Steve… I’m still– I’m still alive… I’m still fighting,” he lifted his face to the ceiling with a groan of pain. “Please… please come save my sorry ass.”

And then he curled into himself, a tightly wrapped mass of blood and wounds in the corner of a cell somewhere in Siberia.

Suddenly, the door burst open and a swarm of guards stormed in, rifles aimed at his head as the largest of the group grabbed him by the metal arm.

Bucky let out a cry as the sensitive connection point was pulled, but the others only bound his legs, shoved the mask on, and hauled him out.

The camera switched to a room Tony hadn’t seen yet. A large circular space, a chair as it’s centerpiece. Only this isn’t an ordinary chair. The thing is massive with big mechanical arms and metal claw looking restraints, frozen in the open position, and straps. So many straps.

The guards threw him onto the table and a scientist rushes over, finding rare bits of skin that haven’t been ripped apart, and injecting various iv tubes into his flesh arm. Another white robed man pressed a button before approaching him, and the metal claws clamped together on his biceps and legs. He then removed the mask and grabbed each side of Bucky’s jaw, careful of the still bloodied teeth, to force a mouth guard in place.

And Tony realized what he was witnessing.

The year of rebellion meant nothing as the contraption was lowered and Bucky screamed more piercing than ever before. So loud that Tony’s ears felt like they would bleed. But he kept the headphones in; didn’t turn the volume down.

And after that… Bucky began to break.

After each memory wipe– almost twice a day as they tried to instill the trigger words– he was thrown into his cell. The man would stumble around the room clutching his head or shoulder before collapsing to the floor and not rising.

He was no longer fed, only through a tube so the mask could stay permanently fixed to his jaw. More of a show of power to the other Hydra members than it was to prevent any more biting. They had him– and they knew it.

His training became even more brutal as he was taught the art of war through pain and broken bones.

When his teacher realized he favored his flesh hand, the teacher commanded him to hold it out. Not a single scream escaped his lips as the handler seized the hand and snapped it. The Soldier simply swallowed the pain, looked at it and nodded.

From then on, he favored no hand.

Tony watched so many more but the one that truly broke his soul showed another brainwashing chair in what seemed to be a bank. Alexander Pierce, demanding a mission report. Tony had seen enough in the past few hours to know the soldier always responded promptly and thoroughly.

But he just sat there.

A hand connected with his face and Tony wonders for the millionth time why he isn’t fighting back. Bucky could take out every man in that room and their families, yet he doesn’t even flinch.

But Tony realizes that he is fighting back, through scrunched eyebrows and a tortured brain– Bucky’s trying with everything he’s got.

In all the videos since the swipes began—despite always answering to The Asset—Bucky couldn’t even remember his own name. The captors would ask about his past, his parents, the city he loved, but he never could remember.

And despite all odds, he sat on that all too familiar chair and whispered, “But I knew him.”

Tony couldn’t believe it. He had remembered. Through torture and regular memory wipes, Bucky had recognized Steve. Tony had never hated anyone more than Alexander Pierce as he gave the order.

“Wipe him.”

And Bucky roared- roared for them to stop. Because this time, the screams were something more. They were the desperate cries of someone who didn’t want to forget.

Tony grabbed the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut as the waves of desperation crashed through his ears like a tsunami.

And when they ceased, his ears rang until the sound of footsteps began to click. He opened his eyes to see the usual laboratory, the one with a slightly reclined metal examination table, stained ever so faintly with the crimson that refused to be cleaned.

The door opened and the clicking grew louder as none other than Zola stepped through; a group of high ranking medallion covered Hydra members, then a shirtless Bucky.

The room filled with armed soldiers, all lining the perimeter of the room, guns pointed at the Winter Soldier who upon instruction laid onto the table and quickly placed himself into each restraint.

Tony took note of the large toned muscles and immense collection of scarring that still had a long way to go by what Banner’s recent medical exam showed.

He did not struggle as one of the soldiers lowered their gun, walking forward, and fastened the leather strips too tightly.

Zola’s guests’ extravagant uniforms shone brightly in the medical lights.

Rubies and gold embossed collars– a stark contrast to the rags and filth coating Bucky. The closest thing to a gold collar being the leather strap chafing his neck, tightened to near suffocation; a matching piece to the thick bands restraining every limb at multiple points.

The small amounts of skin peaking through were covered in angry red chafe wounds and deep bruising that indicated healing bones.

One of the finely dressed men cleared his throat.

“I must commend you, Zola. You have created the perfect weapon. How were you able to accomplish such a feat?”

Tony wanted to throw up at how they all looked from the biochemist to Bucky like a shiny new toy.

“We admit to not having believed your claims,” another sneered, “did not think he would stay under your control while slaughtering the Starks.”

Zola smiled at the praise like a monster in the night as he gazed upon his creation.

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping, Gentlemen... is to make sure he never knows that he is in prison.”

Tony couldn’t take in the next video– another brutal training session where he practiced using every weapon concealed in his restrictive jacket– Zola’s words echoed in his head so loudly that a memory took form. A voice strong and true spoke to him.

_He’s my friend_

_So was I_

Tony had been so high off adrenaline and despair at having his heart ripped from him that he hadn’t noticed… but there it was clear as day… Steve’s unspoken words seemed to scream at Tony now; months too late.

 _He’s my_ everything

And with the cries for help ringing in his ears– the unfortunate victims of that days training– Tony finally understood. The Winter Soldier had taken everything from him.

_Do you even remember them?_

He’d taken his mother and father, taken his friend, caused a divide in the team, caused a war.

_I remember all of them_

Just as he’d taken everything from Bucky.

And although Tony wanted to throw the computer across the room to save himself from seeing anymore, he watched. He watched as Zola paced in front of the now sitting Soldier, blood caking each arm to both– real and vibranium– elbows, hooked up to a lie detector machine.

Tony could tell this video was from much earlier, by the lesser amount of scarring and still open wounds.

Pride puffed the biochemist’s chest as he spoke, “Who is Steve Rogers?”

“Steven Grant Rogers is a Captain in the United States Army. Born in Brooklyn, New York. Blood type O. Dog Tag Serial Number 987654320. Member of Howling Commandos. Volunteer of the Super Soldier program. Strengths include enhanced intelligence, strength, speed, durability, agility, stamina, reflexes, accelerated healing, and advanced longevity. Steven Grant Rogers wears a uniform of red, white, and blue with a blue helmet. The helmet has a white “A” signifying America, white wings on either side, and brown ear covers. Romantic attachment to Agent Carter, an MI5 operative loaned out to the American Strategic Scientific Reserve where she serves as an advisor.”

“Have you ever met Steve Rogers?” Zola said through a creeping smile.

“No.” The lie detector’s line indicated truth.

“Who are you?” Zola commanded. After a split second of confusion, the reply came out, as monotone as all the others.

“I am no one.”

The line remained steady as Zola made another demand, “What are you?”

“I am nothing.”

Zola stopped pacing and took a step closer.

“Who do you serve?”

The warrior of pain and death did not flinch, did not hesitate, as the name rolled easily off his tongue. A familiarity allowing for the quickness of his response.

“Hydra.”

And with that, the scientist turned to the camera with a venom filled smile as if he was staring right at Tony.

“He is ready.”

Horrifying laughter erupted all around him as the screen went blank and Shuri’s accented voice returned. Such a contrast to the screams and barking orders he’d been subject to for the past few hours.

“How long will you stay in the dark.”

Tony stared at the blackened tablet screen reflection, and saw himself. Still shaken to the very core, he removed the tablet and sent a message to the brilliant young mind who had cracked his very soul.

“Thank you,” is all that it said.

And despite the exhaustion weighing him down, and the emotional turmoil he’d just endured, Tony hauled himself from the bed, and made his way out of the dark.

* * *

 

Steve’s back was turned to Tony when he opened the door, sound asleep on his bed. He’d replaced the mattress with a much firmer one, Sams as well when they kept commenting on how they were gonna sink to the floor in the luxury ones. He knew Steve struggled to find sleep almost as badly as he did, but this couldn’t wait.

“Cap.”

No response

“Captain _Rogers_ …”

He sat up and looked around, shaking the fog of sleep clear from his mind. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing… everything… wow I sound like Peter after school.” He began to pace through the immaculately sparse room.

“Tony, what happened?”

“I just– I wanted to say… I’m sorry.”

“For what?” He jerked out of bed and walked towards his friend. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine would you just… listen,” Tony raised his hands willing Steve to stay back, to really hear what he was trying to say. “I’ve been an asshole and a jerk.”

Steve stood taller, beginning to understand what this was about.

“Which time are we talking about, exactly?”

Tony removed the flashdrive from his pocket and held it up for the moonlight to catch.

“Shuri… Shuri gave me this. She hacked into the Hydra archives and found video of… of where they kept Bucky.”

Tony didn’t think Steve was breathing. He continued quickly.

“Let’s just say… I understand now. And I am _so_ sorry. And truly I wish I could tell Bucky that.”

Steve stared wide eyed at Tony then locked onto the flash drive still held in the air. He took a step forward but hesitated, a question in his eyes.

“I don’t think it’s such a great idea for you to see this,” Tony answered in a whisper.

“Please, Tony. I’ve spent every moment since I lost him and found him and lost him again, wondering what happened. Wondering if he really remembered me on the bridge.”

“Knowing won’t make you feel better. Trust me.” Tony could still hear Bucky’s nightly pleas for Steve to rescue him, to save him from the pain. Could still hear the screams for his friend during the amputation, screams that lasted until he coughed red.

“ _Please_.”

And it was the desperation in that one word, the complete agony that caused his hand to drop the piece of metal into Steve’s hand. A weight seemed to lift from Tony’s soul as he turned to leave.

Almost to the door, he looked over his shoulder to see Steve still frozen in the middle of the room, hand cupping the usb like a priceless jewel.

“We’ll save him. All of us,” Tony said as he turned once more. “Together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's a poem I found that sums up the chapter beautifully...
> 
> You died screaming  
> Yet the monster  
> who took your  
> place was silent  
> You are a weapon  
> and weapons do not weep


	5. Chapter 5

The ringing of his phone cut through Tony’s concentration.

Having been hunched over his worktable–littered with various bits of the Avenger’s suits–for the past hour made his back scream when he dropped the electric cuff from Widow’s suit he’d been working on and stood to find the phone.

Sure he could ask Jarvis to answer it, but Tony craved any small amount of motion right now. That’s what had brought him down to the lab so early in the morning, even before changing from his night clothes. The need to work off the nervous energy still haunting him after last night the driving force to prep everyone's tech before the mission.

“Hey, Mr. Stark! Aunt May’s gonna be out this weekend and said I can stay with you guys if that’s good with you?”

Tony cursed himself, realizing he’d forgotten to tell Peter the whole “Bucky situation”. A situation that was becoming more complex now that he didn’t hate the guy. 

“Yah, kid come on over but–”

“Aw sweettt!” Tony had to move the phone away from his ear at the high pitched excitement erupting from the other side. “I’m on my way over now, just cleaned my suit and everything. You guys are going on another mission tomorrow right? Agent Romanoff sent me this weirdly encrypted email–who uses email anymore by the way?–but I figured it out.”

“Woah woah, slow down!” Tony took a breath and counted to three, trying to clear his mind and find a good way to explain everything to him.

“Uh… Mr. Stark?”

“Yah, I’m here. Just… sit down on a bench or something for a second, there’s something I need to talk to you about before you get here.”

“Okay… are you alright?”

“You sitting?” Tony said with a huff and a smile invisible to the teenager that cared so much for his well being.

“Yup.”

“So… you know Bucky?” Tony said while he leaned against the wall behind him.

“‘Who the hell is Bucky’, Bucky? Nah never heard of him,” Peter snorted a small laugh at his own joke and despite everything, Tony’s heart lightened at the sound. 

Tony could hear a crowd of people walking by through the phone and Peter lowered his voice to a whisper, “The super cool but real scary ex-brainwashed russian assassin? Yah, I’ve talked to him a few times… well more like  _ at _ him. He doesn’t really say much. But, from what Cap has told me, he’s a really great dude.”

Tony let the words sink in, the realization that even Peter had seen through to Bucky’s true self. And now that he thought about it, Tony could recall the times they had met–Bucky had made no moves to hurt Peter–and the time Tony had seen them sitting on the same couch, Bucky trying to give comfort to the teenager in his own way.

“Well do you remember how we were in Siberia a few days ago? There was an accident–Bucky… fell and hit his head, to put it mildly.”

A gasp sounded, “Oh my gosh! Is he okay? Is Steve okay?” Tony smiled at that. This kid had the biggest heart in the world, and his instincts seemed honed to care just as Tony’s were to fix.

“Steve’s hanging in there. As for Bucky… he’s doing alright, just suffering from some really bad amnesia.”

“Dang that sucks, does he not know who he is?”

“No, he does–just not  _ all _ of who he is. Been having some ‘flashbacks’ but so far doesn’t remember the Winter Soldier, working for Hydra, or that he wasn’t born in this century. But, he still has all the training and skills of the Soldier, so he’s kind of… fragile right now.”

Tony could almost see the soft expression and whirring mind as Peter was silent for a moment.

“Huh. Did you talk to Shuri?”

“Yesterday. She suggested we not force any memories to come back for the sake of his mental stability.”

“That’s crazy!” He exclaimed, and after a moment, “Wait, does he remember who I am?”

“Only one way to find out. Just try to act normal until he makes a connection. If he doesn’t, then introduce yourself and start fresh.” Although Tony’s mind was screaming to tell Peter that if he didn’t want to do this he didn’t have to, Tony bit his tongue. This  _ kid _ was anything but, he could handle it. Had proven himself more than once that he truly was an Avenger, more so than Tony felt at times.

“Sounds good, I’m getting on the subway now. See you soon!”

“Alright, Pete.” And because he just couldn’t help it, Tony muttered “be safe” before hanging up and turned back to face the table. 

Taking a look around at the almost finished pieces, he told Jarvis to turn the lights off and lock the door behind him as Tony strode for his bedroom to get ready for the day. 

Ever since the day Thor had wandered into the lab to find Bruce– and he’d accidentally fried one of Tony’s favorite machines when he’d gotten bored enough to send a spark of lightning into it– Tony kept the lab on lockdown. Only to open for himself, Bruce, and Pepper.

When Tony at last turned the corner to his bedroom, he saw Clint standing in the hallway beside the door. He seemed to be asking Jarvis where he could find Tony.

“Hey, Clint. What’cha need?” 

The spy spun around and quickly ushered Tony into his room, closing the door behind him. 

“What’s–” Tony started. But without a word, Clint’s hand disappeared into one of the many inside pockets of his jacket. A worn out leather journal was removed and Clint’s face became one of serious levity.

“Steve and Banner told me about the flashdrive Shuri gave you. I don’t know what’s on it,” he extended the journal with a steady hand, “but tell me if this sounds familiar.”

Tony hesitated, confused and slightly alarmed at the unusually serious tone the archer had taken on. But as he opened the journal, a strangled breath escaped and he understood what had brought on this side of Clint.

Because what stared back at Tony was horrifying. 

Frantic words and unfinished sentences scrawled out on each page until the paper couldn’t take it anymore and tore under the weight of such words. Each page bore scars and dried pools of ink splattered like drops of blood.

As he flipped through every damaged page–eyes darting along each line–the dots connected.

“Memories,” Tony breathed. “These are memories.”

He looked up at Clint who clenched his jaw. “Nat and I thought it might be. We didn’t show Steve yet… I don’t think he’s come out of his room since watching the flashdrive.”

Tony’s gut twisted but he stayed silent as Clint continued.

“She and I figured that Bucky probably used the journal while he was on the run… when he was remembering things since being away from Hydra.”

_ Memories that started seeping back after being away from the chair that had taken them all away _ , Tony thought to himself. The demented voices of Zola and Pierce filled his head until he shook them away.

“Almost like he was scared of losing them again,” Clint offered.

Tony was familiar with the method, he’d heard of war veterans documenting their memories to better understand and analyze them. He’d even overheard Sam suggesting Cap try it. 

Tony looked down at the abused journal again, the small object carrying an impossible weight–yet somehow only a fraction of what its owner had to bare. He lifted his gaze.

“Peter is on his way,” his voice sounded far away, but Tony cleared his throat. “I explained the situation–we don’t know if Bucky will know who he is since they’ve only met a few times before the accident.”

Clint nodded but went still with realization. “Hang on, we leave tomorrow morning. What’re we gonna do with… we can’t leave him alone, right?”

Tony cursed himself, he hadn’t even thought about that. They had finalized the mission plans before the incident, meaning Bucky was still worked into them. And now that Tony wasn’t using every ounce of his being to hate the man, he became acutely aware of how bad it would be for him to not be there.

Tony hadn’t realized until now that despite the Iron Man suit and other Avengers, he had become accustomed to knowing there was a cloud of darkness armed to the teeth watching over him and the others from the shadows of some tall building. 

Awful as it sounded, even in his head, Bucky was like an animal during missions– a deadly entity always ready to be unleashed. And that had become a huge comfort in battle, even if Tony was just now realizing it.

“We can’t afford to leave anyone else behind,” Tony rubbed his chin in thought. “Two sitting out will reduce our chances of success significantly.”

Clint voiced his agreement just as a knock sounded from the other side of the room.

“Mr. Stark?” The cheerful voice flowed from the wood, “Jarvis told me where to find you.”

Being closest to the door, Clint opened it and a smiling teenager walked through. Clint raised a brow to Tony and threw a pointed look at Peter, having worked out a plan to solve their dilemma in that split second.

But the master spy relaxed his posture, and in the blink of an eye his face rose from the sadness and stress into one of pure delight. Tony knew it was a skill Clint had perfected not only for the sake of missions, but for his wife and kids. 

And although Tony had seen it done at least a dozen times by now–that instantaneous concealing of his true emotions behind a megawatt smile and humor glinted eyes–it still fascinated him every time.

“What’s up dude? How’d the physics test go?” Another thing that always caught Tony off guard– Clint’s ability to retain so much information. Sure Tony could remember impossible quantities of complex science and math, but the spy was capable of absorbing insane amounts of details. Something that had helped rise him to the top of every enemy list alongside Natasha. 

Clint had no doubt already memorized every file on their next targets, the ins and outs of the mission along with all of Cap’s emergency backup plans, and had still been able to remember that Peter had a physics test– it baffled Tony. 

“Oh ya know, probably got the highest score in class,” he said with a laugh, just as surprised to find that Clint had remembered. 

The kid was a true warrior in Clint’s book and he knew the others felt the same way. Despite joking about his inexperience or calling him ‘kid’, Peter had earned the respect of every Avenger, and was regarded as one of the team.

Peter turned to Tony, “So when do we leave?”

They had started letting Peter go on missions, but with Bucky having to stay… 

Clint nodded again towards Peter from where only Tony could see the gesture.

“Hey, Clint? We’ll meet you downstairs in a minute okay? Maybe try and find Bucky so they can meet? Just don’t tell him what’s happening.”

Clint tilted an imaginary hat, dipping into a low bow before Peter before exiting. Peter gave a wave and turned back to Tony.

“Something wrong?”    


“No. Well… you see, Bucky can’t go with us due to his… condition. And–”

“You need someone to stay with him,” Peter finished.

Tony nodded, “If you don’t mind. He needs to be watched, but we still don’t know what could trigger him or if he could turn fully into the Soldier. Actually… now that I’m saying this out loud… maybe it’s not such a good idea.”

But Peter shook his head, standing a little straighter, “I can do it. He couldn’t break through my webs at the airport and I held his punches, remember?” A smile grew on his face, “Which means that after Cap… I’m probably the best suited to be near him. Plus I got Jarvis watchin my back. Right Jar?”

“Most definitely, Mr. Parker.”

Peter looked up at the ceiling, “Hey we talked about this, Jar. You can call me Peter.”

“Of course, Mr. Peter."

He laughed deeply at that, even Tony chuckled before placing a hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“If you’re sure…”

“Don’t worry, we’ll stay here and chill. Oh, maybe we can watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off! No one can watch that movie without laughing.” Peter said as they walked out the room to go see the others.

* * *

 

Clint didn’t have a hard time finding Bucky. He just followed the smell of grilled cheese and that strange carefree laughter. Sure enough, Clint walked into the kitchen to find Natasha by the stove and was surprised to find that Steve was out of his room, washing lettuce.

“Hey Clint,” Bucky said from his seat at the island without turning around, “are tomatoes a fruit or vegetable?”

A little caught off guard, Clint glanced at Nat who rolled her eyes with a smile, “Uh… fruit? They have seeds…”

“Told you!” Bucky cheered, pointing to Steve who scrunched his brows with a huff of laughter. “So that’s a fruit salad,” he said pointing to the lettuce Steve was ripping up into a bowl, now mixed in with tomatoes.

“Uh huh, whatever you say, Buck.”

Joining Bucky at the island, he cast a sidelong glance at him. A content face beneath the now loose strands of hair looked back. He was about to say something when Nat spoke from her spot at the stovetop. 

“Why don’t you come dice some carrots for this ‘whatever you wanna call it’ salad,” she said while flipping a sandwich. “Clint made breakfast yesterday, so it’s your turn to help, mister.”

“I’d like mine without hair, please,” Clint added to which he received a vulgar gesture as Bucky flipped upside down to gather his hair into a messy bun. Clint still couldn’t get over how odd it looked like that. How completely different he looked.

Natasha told him where to find a cutting board and cleared out a spot between her and Steve to work. After placing a bag of carrots on the wooden surface, she made to hand him a knife.

“Oh!” She cried out when the knife dropped from her hand.

And as Bucky moved with impossibly fast reflexes to catch the hilt, Clint swiveled his head to the redhead. In all the time he’d known her, Nat had never dropped  _ anything _ ; he knew she’d been punished brutally for such actions during her early training. Steve seemed to realize the same thing as he met their narrowed eyes.

But when Bucky rose back to his full height, knife in hand he paused, brow scrunching. He turned it experimentally and was shocked to feel his brain automatically take in the weight and balance. 

He instantly knew what kind of metal it is; the origins of it’s design. As his muscles map out the best ways to spin it, he knows exactly how much force he’ll need to apply for it to penetrate skin, muscle, or bone; and his wrist twitches, setting the blade in the perfect angle to sever tendons or jugulars. 

All of which happens in the blink of an eye, in one beat of his too steady heart.

Steve reaches towards him at the sound of metal hitting the tile floor. But when he jolts to follow, Natasha throws out a hand.

“Hang on, let me try.” Much to Clint’s surprise, Steve met her eyes and backed off. 

“Jarvis?” The super soldier said to the ceiling.

“To his bedroom, Mr. Rogers.” And Natasha was gone.

Clint looked over to Steve who was staring at the doorway. Now that Bucky was gone, a shadow fell over his face. And Clint knew it wasn’t just from this sudden attack.

“Did–” Clint hesitated, not sure how far to push. Steve gave and gave for everyone else, sacrificed so much in his long life. It kept Clint up at night sometimes to think of how all he’d wanted was Bucky, and how the universe had done it’s best to keep him from Steve. He cleared his throat and prepared to behold that set jaw and those icy eyes, “–did you watch the flash drive?” 

That large form turned, but his eyes did not rise from the floor. Such a rare trait of his, that uncertainty and anger, Clint hadn’t seen it often.

“Yes.”

Clint took a breath before saying what he’d wanted to since his talk with Tony– since he’d first opened that journal. 

“I can’t believe all that has happened. But Steve?” The captain finally looked up to meet Hawkeyes gaze, “It wasn’t your fault, okay? You saw him die, and you still looked for him. None of it is on you. You’re a grown man, ancient even, but you need someone to tell you– you’ve been through your own hell for so long. You need to come to terms with the fact that there’s nothing you could’ve done to save him. The sooner you do, the easier it will be to sleep at night, trust me. I mean you know survivors guilt better than me–better than anyone for that case– but still… just stop looking at the past, it’s dark there. Only the present, that’s what matters.”

Steve didn’t answer for so long that Clint worried he’d gone too far, that it was too soon after being blinded by traveling through Bucky’s own hell. 

But finally, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he opened them again, a tender smile took form as he regarded his friend. “Sam get you to one of his military vet meetings?” But he clasped a hand onto Clint’s shoulder, feeling a weight lift from his own. “Thanks, Clint… I mean it.”

Clint stepped away and gave him a rough pat on the back, “Hey just think, tomorrow we’ll be hunting the assholes whose fault it really is.”

Steve didn’t fight the hyena smile that crept onto his face, matching the archer’s.

“Yah, can’t wait.”

* * *

 

Natasha turned the hall just in time to see Bucky slam the bedroom door behind him. She collides with the wood, grasping the metal handle, but it’s locked. 

Inside the dark room, Bucky spins in staggered circles as voices—fragments like hissing snakes—fill his mind. 

 

…. _ wipe him _ ….

 

_...best way to keep prisoner from escaping…..never knows he’s in prison…. _

 

_ …...who do you serve……... _

 

As he spins, the bathroom door catches his eye and he lunges for it, pushing into the small room, metal hand tearing the doorframe in desperation. 

Breathing heavily, he braces himself on the countertop with one shaking arm. His wild eyes meet the mirror to see someone he doesn’t recognize. 

Those wild eyes scanned the form before him, catching on the red star.  _ Where did it come from? Did Steve paint it? How did I even get an arm like this? _ He couldn’t remember technology ever being this advanced, even Tony had been confused by it. 

The bright lights glinted off the metal, sending spots into his wide eyes. Jamming the faucet on–barely having enough control to use his flesh hand–he plunges cupped hands under the running water, aching for clarity and relief. Begging for the voices and hallucinations to  _ stop _ .

But as his face submerges and he fights for breath, Bucky suddenly sees a shadow pulling a man from a river, almost as if the water in his hand was a window to another realm. But the vision is too murkey, like the water being coughed up from the man's lips, and he can’t identify either male. 

He frantically refills his cupped hands but through the gathered water appears the glass of a helicopter, and through it he could see the water getting closer and closer. The visions came too fast, the voices grew too loud, and he couldn’t tell if the room was swaying or if it was his own body.

Natasha burst through the door in time to see Bucky, who was staring into his hands, crash to the ground. Head missing the countertop by millimeters. 

Rushing over to the now unconscious form, she knelt on the wet floor. Placing a hand to the constricting fabric, she could feel his still racing heart through the twitching muscles. 

“Jarvis?” 

“Yes, Agent Romanoff?”

“Get Steve.”

* * *

 

Sure Natasha had given her firm request to try and help Bucky herself, but after talking to Clint and being reminded that the here and now is most important, Steve couldn’t stop himself from making his way to Bucky’s room.

Lost in thought of how he’d convice Nat to let him help, Steve didn’t notice the open door of a room he passed on the way to the elevator. Not until he was almost to the control panel did he remember who else he needed to see. 

Striding back down the hall and peering into the open room belonging to Spider ‘Man’, Steve saw Peter unpacking a duffle bag. He knocked on the wall lightly and after a smiling wave, entered.

Peter was really happy to see a peaceful expression on Cap’s face as he leaned against the doorframe, the guy deserved a break even though he wasn’t likely to get one for awhile.

“Clint told me that you’re going to stay here with Bucky tomorrow?”

And although there were no traces of malice in those words, Peter stilled mid fold by the dresser, realizing too late that he probably should’ve asked Steve if it was okay with him.

“Um… yah, I was going to. If that’s alright with you?”

Steve chuckled, “Hey, kid I trust you. If you think you think you can handle Buck, then I’ll respect that.”

Pride blossomed in Peter’s chest. Sure, he had noticed himself getting better in training and during those missions he was permitted to go on… but Peter hadn’t been expecting the reactions of the other Avengers… who had become his  _ fellow _ Avengers. 

“But,” Steve said with a smirk, “if I know him at all, he’s not going to want to be stuck here any longer. Being in one place makes him restless, even before…”

Before the memories could latch on, Peter spoke up, “Oh, sure, if you want I can take him around the city. Safe places only.”

Steve’s face lightened, eyes getting that far off look as he remembered the days when it was just the two of them; struggling together in this very city. 

“Don’t tell him I said this, but he loves the park. One of his favorite things is to walk around without speaking, just being outside with nature. So don’t be alarmed if he doesn’t say anything.”

Peter placed the info into his memory bank. “Okay, we can do that. Should be safe enough in the daylight. Anything else?”

“Oh, he’s got a soft spot for baked goods.”

“No way.” Peter couldn’t imagine the most feared assassin, the man with more kills than anyone in history… eating a fluffy pastry. 

But Steve nodded with all the seriousness he could, realizing how odd it would sound to someone that didn’t know Bucky like he did. 

“Yup. We could never afford any, but I’d save up coins the whole year, then go buy everything I could, bringing it to him in wrapped boxes.” Steve laughed to himself at the memory of that baker’s face when the scrawny kid with ripped clothes bought out his entire display case. “And every year, Bucky’d slap me upside the head, saying it was a waste of money. But then we’d sit on the roof and eat till we were sick.

I didn’t think it was a waste though, not at the smile he’d wear for the rest of the month. And even when he ‘beat me up’ I never mentioned how he’d refuse to eat till I did, or how he’d work extra shifts to buy me a new pair of shoes or art supplies.” 

Peter wished he could stay in this moment forever. Hearing each word so filled with joy and pure life, it calmed Peter to the core. It reminded him of when he volunteered at a nursing home last year, how the old men loved to regale tales of the good old days. 

But Steve didn’t have the luxury to sit on a bench, watching the ducks swim while reflecting on his life. And Peter was filled with a sudden anger at that. 

He opened his mouth to tell Cap about his favorite bakery that he’d take Bucky to, when a voice drifted from the ceiling.

“Captain Rogers?”

Steve became instantly alert, but his shoulders weren’t tense anymore. And for the first time since pressing play on that flashdrive, his mind felt clear.

“Yes, Jarvis?”

“Agent Romanoff has requested your assistance in Sargent Barns’ room.”

He lowered his gaze back to Peter, “I’ll never get used to that.”   
  
Peter’s laugh echoed in Steve’s head as he steeled his nerves against the rising anxiety of what fresh hell might awaited him.

How many more times could he see Bucky in pain?    
“Please,” he whispered into the empty elevator, “ _ please _ … no more.”


	6. Chapter 6

Slowly becoming aware of his surroundings, Bucky began to regain consciousness; as if pushing off the bottom of a lakebed and drifting to the surface.

The neverending silence of sleep gave way to a strange sound that ebbed and flowed like soft waves of a receding wave. He didn’t understand it, but the deep tone calmed him until he recognized the voice.

“You sound like a girl,” Bucky rasped through a dry mouth, eyes still closed.

Memory still a brick wall, Bucky couldn’t recall if he’d ever heard a more captivating sound than the laugh that filled the room.

He opened his eyes to see the outline of Steve’s body in the dim light. A hovering angel it seemed, as the small bit of light that had sneaked through the window cast itself onto his hair, catching on the bits of gold in the sea of brown strands.

And although he couldn’t see much else in the darkness, Bucky could sense Steve’s tense muscles relax completely. Something Bucky did remember to be a rare feat.

“Open the blinds will ya?” he chided with a poorly hidden trace of humor, “What are we, vamps?”

Steve rose from the uncomfortable looking chair with a huff of amusement and Bucky’s eyes scanned over his friend, catching on the blue iresis and remnants of a long held scrunched brow.

“You doing alright?” he asks as Steve crosses the room, suddenly very aware that he didn’t know why he was in bed.

“Am I alright?” Steve says incredulously, flicking open the curtains and allowing the pale glow to stream in. He turns in time to see Bucky prop on his metal arm and take a deep breath at the warm light now covering his torso like a heated blanket. “I could ask you the same thing.”

Bucky squints in the light and sits up more, rubbing his head. Steve tries not to linger on the bits of skin exposed from beneath Bucky’s shirt, tries not to remember watching how he got each of those horrible scars or hear the broken voice he’d used to cry out Steve’s name, tries to stop the–

“I’m fine… but what happened?” Bucky looks up to see Steve close his eyes for a moment and reopen with a shake of his head. “Hey, you sure you’re okay?”

  
Steve waved off his worried voice and asked what he last remembers.

“Come sit down, and not on that stupid plastic chair.” Only when Steve had settled onto the edge of his bed did Bucky continue, “I remember everyone in the kitchen making lunch, then… nothing.”

The statement worried Steve; a lot of time had passed from the moment he’d been joking around to when Nat had seen him collapse, not to mention the emotions that must have been overwhelming him during the attack. The fact that Bucky hadn’t remembered anything…

But, Bucky’s eyes widened in shock, “Wait… did I faint in front of Clint and Natasha?”

  
Steve settled further into the sun drenched mattress. “Like a dame in distress.”

Bucky ran a hand through his hair with a rough swallow and Steve couldn’t hold back a bark of laughter. His friends face paled before donning a smirk.

“Hey who you laughing at, punk? Didn’t you use to pass out after a paper cut?”

Steve quickly hid the look of surprise that rose from that miniscule detail from back in their military days.

“Maybe..”

“Uh huh. Punk”

“Jerk.”

Bucky smiled and looked around at his stark room. Steve noticed the slight dip in his friend’s grin as he surveyed the space.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Mhmm?”

“Why’s my room so… empty?”

Steve racked his brain for a way to answer without giving anything away. Because despite the forced warm welcomes of Tony, and Steve’s constant reassurance, Bucky had never made himself at home in the room— or in Stark tower for that matter.

Steve knew it was because Bucky had been trained to always be ready to leave and never return, a lesson he’d been taught in the military with Steve, and enforced through his time with Hydra.

Steve realized now— with newfound clarity from the flash drive— that Bucky had made his room as close to a cell as possible: blackout curtains, barely any furniture, covered mirrors… and that mysterious backpack.

When it had become apparent that Bucky wasn’t the same after waking that first morning from the accident, Steve had taken the backpack out and stashed it under his bed. He hadn’t felt good about doing it, but after telling Shuri and having his actions confirmed, he knew it was the right move.

The bag contained the closest things Bucky had to valuable possessions: hunting knives, daggers, rifle magazines, wads of cash in varying currencies, food rations, a burner phone, pair of leather gloves and a few changes of clothes.

The only thing missing— the journal Clint had found. And since he knew all of this, it pained him even more to plaster on a smile and lie to his best friend.

“Don’t know… probably because you’re weird.”

Bucky didn’t seem fooled, but his ruined mind couldn’t justify why, so he just looked back to the emptiness.

“Can you make something for the walls?”

Steve tried to hide his shock once more. Sure he used to draw almost every night while living with Bucky in Brooklyn, but there’s no way he remembered that.

“What?” It was all Steve could think to answer.

“You sketch right? I’ve always wanted to frame some of your work and hang it.”

When Bucky noticed the surprise still etched on Steve’s features, he tilted his head in confusion, “I haven’t… told you that before?”

Steve forced himself to recover, “No you– uh– no you haven’t… but sure, Buck, I’d love to.”

He smiled at that before sitting up more alert in the bed, disturbing how Steve had been situated and almost knocking him off.

Before Steve could ask what was wrong, a knock sounded on the door. Steve assumed Bucky had identified the person as non threatening by the sheer fact that he wasn’t bracing himself to fight— though he still slid over on the mattress so that his enormous body was wholly between Steve and he door.

There was a quick knock on the door before Tony swung it open, placing himself in the opening. “Hey, how ya feeling?”

“I’d be alot better without mother hen over here.”

Tony paused to take in the odd sight of Bucky basking in the sun, hair still tied up, with Steve sprawled out on the opposite end.

“Wouldn’t we all,” he said, not meaning a word. “I got someone here to see you, if that’s alright?”

Bucky nodded, having already sensed that a second smaller yet muscular body was outside the door. Tony stepped further into the room, pointing to the young man.

Steve threw a confused look at Tony before quickly realizing what was going on.

“Hey… how’s it goin?” Peter said with an awkward wave.

No one breathed as Bucky scrunched his brows in concentration at the teenager.

Steve could tell Bucky was most likely sensing the threat this new form posed, and suddenly realized with another pointed look to Stark, that Peter would likely pose as a big one due to his new Avengers training and altered genes.

The look was conveyed correctly, it seemed, as Stark took an inconspicuous step towards the kid.

After what felt like an eternity pinned beneath the assassin’s predatory stare, Peter released the breath he’d been holding as Bucky turned that glare away to Steve, instantly softening to that of a confused puppy.

“I don’t– I can’t... tell...”

He seemed to be tensing back up in confusion over determining friend or foe from the teenager. But just as Tony was about to shove Peter back out the door, Bucky looked back, “Um… have we… met before?”

His face flushed lightly with embarrassment, a look that made Steve subconsciously reach for him, placing a comforting hand on his drawn up shoulder.

“Buck, this is Peter,” Steve said calmly as he gestured to the brown haired boy who took a hesitant step forward, extending his hand.

Bucky took it, and Peter tried not to gasp at the bite of cold metal that greeted his own warm skin.

The other two men tried not to gape; Bucky had never offered that arm of vibranium, let alone without so much as a millisecond of hesitation.

“Nice to meet you, Peter. Are you a threat to Steve?”

The room stilled at the awkwardly blunt question, everyone keenly aware that Peter’s hand was still held in the glimmering metal. But Peter swallowed and said as convincingly as he could “No”.

And Bucky believed him.

The larger man released his grip and donned a wide smile. “Well then you’re alright by me. You got a last name, Peter?”

Still reeling from the interrogation, Tony piped up for him, “Parker.”

“Peter Parker… that sounds familiar. Huh, oh well. I’m sure they told you but my memory isn’t the greatest right now.”

Peter smiled and gave a polite shrug, “Happens to the best of us.”

Bucky laughed at the joke and Tony smiled, but Steve could tell the kid meant every word.

* * *

 

With the grass still smoldering beneath his feet, Thor squinted his eyes at the beams of golden light reflecting off the tower before him.

Nothing compared to the structures of his homeworld, but impressive nonetheless.

Thor had wanted to take all of his friends to see it— sure that even Tony would be rendered speechless.

Mjolnir a comforting weight in his hand, he took a breath as he prepared to be carried to the landing pad near the tower’s summit.

He had not planned to be back on Earth so soon from his own mission, but news had come from Heimdal that James—or ‘Bucky’ as Steve had corrected him once— had suffered gravely during the recent visit to that frigid land… Siberia they called it?

As Thor’s cape whipped in the wind from the quick accent, he worried for the man.

Despite all Steve had told him of his companion, Thor had never feared the dark shadow. Been respectfully warry, yes of course. But never fear towards the warrior.

Thor had been in awe the first time he’d seen Bucky in action; felt as if he were in another realm. For he had fought as Thor himself did, not by using a hammer and lightning, but through the way he seemed to find calm in the chaos of battle, appeared to glow amidst the bloodshed of the fallen.

And as Thor’s abrupt landing shook the platform, the Asgardian hoped that the man was alright, because he wished for a new sparring partner. One that was a little less green.

* * *

 

Steve released a sigh as he filled a water glass in the sink. And for once, the release of air wasn’t to expel pent up stress or worry.

No, Steve was happy. So purely content for the first time in a very long time.

The glass half filled, he looked over his shoulder into the living room. Steve had to remind himself that it was no dream or hallucination that saw Bucky nestled in the corner of the leather couch.

A page in the book resting on his lap was lazily turned over as Steve turned off the faucet.

Bucky felt Steve’s eyes and, lifting his own to meet those of such oceanic blue, they shared a smile. Though their lips barely moved, the moment was more comforting than the embraces Bucky was sure he remembered they had crushed each other with after being seperated for too long.

Breaking the connection, Steve joined Bucky once more on the couch, instantly aware of the frigid feet Bucky placed on his leg as he settled beneath the large blanket.

He was about to reach for the glass of water he’d placed on the table while getting situated, when Bucky closed his book, clearing his throat.

“Steve?”

He had to remember how to breathe at the sound of his name coming from Bucky so easily. No self loathing in Bucky’s voice, no shadows of darkness or glaze of horror at what he had been forced to do as the Soldier.

Steve turns fully towards him, and sensing the radiating discomfort, softened his worried expression. “Yah, Buck?”

“Can I– nevermind… it’s nothing.”

Steve scrunches his eyes at the uncertainty, “What is it? Hey, it’s me. You can ask me anything.”

Bucky stares at the book in his lab. No—Steve realizes—his eyes aren’t on the book, but at his flesh hand resting between them.

“My hand… “ he raises it and Steve schools his features.

The callouses and webs of scar tissue are thick as they stretch to cover the permanently bruised skin of his fingers. Steve doesn’t have to wonder if the unusually large knuckles are hard as rock— he has the hospital records of a broken jaw and ribs to prove it.

“I can’t remember,” Bucky continues, voice barely a whisper, “but I dont’ think hands are supposed to be like this?” His flesh fingers close in a fist on his thigh. “I was wondering if I could see… “

He struggled to get the words out through embarrassment, but Steve was already extending his own calloused hand. And with a look of thanks through the loose strands of hair, Bucky raises his beside Steve’s.

Steve tries to stay perfectly still, face a mask of comfort and encouragement. A task made almost impossible as Bucky took Steve’s hand into his own metal one.

Having never felt the cold vibranium arm other than when it had been connecting with his face or chest, Steve couldn’t help the gasp that escaped upon first contact.

But Bucky didn’t seem to notice. So lost in his analysis, all Steve could do was marvel at how gently he turned Steve’s hand into different angles so as to better compare the structure.

“Huh,” Bucky finally said. Steve stayed silent, recognizing the tone—the one Bucky used when he was trying to form a sentence but needed a moment to organize his thoughts.

He released Steve’s hand and scrunched a brow. Steve wanted to ask what it was he found through the inspection, but remained silent. Meaning that the sudden bursting into the room by Thor was that much more than alarming.

Now tuned to how Bucky might react to strangers, Steve flung a hand out and quickly whispered “not a threat” to his now very tense friend.

Thor’s beaming features turned to confusion at the reaction to his routine entrance.

And then he noticed the form that Steve was shielding.

Bucky, but… different. Thor did not recall the assassin wearing his hair in such a fashion, or being so comfortable sitting in the common-area with anyone, even the Captain.

“Heimdal alerted me of trouble. I traveled from Asgard to ensure your wellbeing, for he was quite concerned.”

Steve rose slowly from the couch and took Thor aside while Bucky stayed in his spot. But Steve recognized the relaxed posture for what it was, a facade. The way Bucky had situated himself back into the couch was in such a way to hide the coiled muscles.

Steve turned his attention to Thor who flipped Mjolnir in the air as he did when unsure.

“I thought Bucky to be injured?”

Steve shook his head, “No… well sort of. Building collapsed, he hit his head and… isn’t himself right now.”

Thor’s face bowed in respect before a light spread across his features once more. “Is it that… what did Jane call it…. Amnashesa?”

Steve stifled a laugh but nodded, “Something like that. Amnesia.”

“So he cannot remember me?”

Steve shrugged, keeping his voice low although he knew Bucky was hearing every word. “Why don’t we find out,” he said, motioning for Thor to follow as he approached the couch, pausing a healthy distance away.

Bucky’s eyes took in Thor who flipped that strange hammer in one hand while extending the other in greeting. “Thor, son of Odin. Prince of Asgard. God of Thunder.”

As if needing to feel that hand—further test the strength and level of threat before him—Steve watched as Bucky extended his own scarred hand.

“Bucky Barnes. Friend of Steve.”

Steve was surprised to hear the lighthearted mock seriousness in Bucky’s words and wondered how it was that he wasn’t set off by Thor’s powers. And Thor, having been around enough warriors to understand he had passed the examination, was a bit taken aback as well.

But the assassin didn’t seem to notice as he shook Thor’s hand and nodded to him, “Nice outfit. I– uh… I can’t say I remember you.” He turned to Steve, “You sure I’ve met him before? I don’t think anyone could forget… all that.”

Thor beamed at the complement, cape shaking as he nodded and shifted his weight. “We have battled many times before, surely you recall when–”

Steve stepped forward, keeping his voice relaxed despite the screaming in his mind, “Bucky can’t remember much right now, and we’re trying to keep from overwhelming his system—doctor’s orders.”

Steve wanted to embrace the god, because he seemed to have translated the glint in his eyes and message hidden beneath. Thor tried again, “Ah, of course. What of the others?”

Settling back into the couch to settle Bucky, he gave Thor a brief rundown of what everyone was doing at the moment; mostly getting ready or resting up for the mission.

Those blue eyes stay on Thor while talking, even while stretching out his hand on the soft blanket covering Bucky’s curled legs. The assassin traced the lines and bones of the pale hand with his own.

Thor watches the exchange between Steve and Bucky, amazed by this silent communication.

And the Asgardian wished he could help Bucky be this warm to himself and Earth, always.

Lost in thought while the other two conversed nonverbally, he was about to release Mjolnir into the air when his arm froze as realization struck him.

“Heimdal… he may be able to help,” and although it was barely a whisper to himself, Steve and Bucky turned their attention to him. But Thor was already striding to the door by the time Bucky interjected.

“Wait! You just got here, no sense in leaving so soon… especially not for me. And Clint mentioned a party tonight before everyone leaves.”

Steve was about to interject, needing to stop those thoughts from entering Bucky's mind and to convince him that the sooner they had a way to help him, the better.

But Thor swiveled back around, remembering how well the Captain could hold his alcohol, and spread his arms wide.

“Who am I to turn down an evening of revelry?”

* * *

 

As the sun descended beneath the horizon of skyscrapers, everyone gathered in one of the social rooms usually reserved for large parties. The vast, contemporary space was almost enough to hold the Avenger’s diverse and powerful personalities.

Peter expected a warm welcome when he strolled through the double glass doors of the rooms entryway, but was greeted instead by everyone’s backs. For the group was gathered at the bar, listening to stories from Thor. The Asgardian knew how to hold their attention. Like school children huddled around a teacher, they all listened to the tales of planets beyond, completely silent.

Even Bucky barely turned to see who had entered the space, for Thor was pouring another glass of liquid for himself and launching into another story, this one about an adventure with his brother.

Natasha turned to see Peter standing at the door and peeled away from the group.

Her heart was full at the sight of them all at the bar, even though Thor was the only one drinking. There mission tomorrow demanded clear heads and steady precision. But tonight was for relaxing, a time to be together before departing.

She reached Peter and gave him a genuine smile which he returned tenfold. Before he could speak though, Natasha descreately glanced over her shoulder to ensure the other russian assassin wasn’t watching before whispering into his ear.

“I need to talk to you tonight, about you staying with Bucky tomorrow.”

Peter’s face went serious as he nodded.

* * *

 

Somewhere during the evening, when the stars had filled the night sky and the couches were full of weary bodies, Bucky—the only one not on a couch—spoke from the bar.

“And I thought Steve’s shield was weird…” Bucky said with a laugh as everyone turned.

They all turned to see Bucky… holding Mjolnir. The scars on his hand a stark contrast to the shining yet worn leather.

Glass shattered as Thor’s hand went limp. No one jumped at the sound, no one moved. Bucky didn’t seem to notice as he tilted the sacred hammer in his palm of metal, running the fingers of his other hand over the intricate etchings.

“What’s this say?” he mumbled to himself, curiosity illuminating his irises.

Tony was surprised to find that he wasn’t jealous of the feat, not in the slightest. Because who, in the history of ever, has deserved it more than the man standing before them?

The others seemed to be reaching similar conclusions as the shock wore off like a sheen of sweat. Thor approached him with an awkward yet genuine smile, never having had to discuss the hammer before.

“He who is worthy.”

Bucky tosses the hammer to Thor, the mischievous look rivaling that of Thor’s brother.

“Must be the hair.”

As the remaining tension was cleaved through by Thor’s bellows of laughter, Steve rose and clasped a firm hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yah, whatever you say, Buck.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there!! I know it's been a while, but I hope you enjoy <3

 

 

Peter practically melted into the plush chair, illuminated by the nearby reading lamp with a soft green light. He’d changed the bulb a few months ago, favoring the oddly calming hue of grass. Tony hadn’t asked questions regarding the strange request, just as he hadn’t asked why Peter was willing to sit out on tomorrows mission.

It’s true, he’d been so excited to go. So excited to show off his new training and slip into that lull of a mission when all that mattered were the tingling senses in his veins and the comforting commands from Cap through his earpiece. 

He was glad Tony hadn't pushed more—proud that he and Cap had recognized his progress and were finally seeing him as a true Avenger—because to be honest, Peter didn’t think he had the balls to speak his true feelings to Tony.

With a groan, Peter stretched his spine, sinking further into the cushions. Looking over to the contemporary night stand, he saw the time. Almost midnight.

Making a series of noises only capable of being mastered by a teenager, Peter retrieved his backpack from where it had been thrown on the bed, and returned to his chair.  _ Am I actually aboutta do homework?? What a freaking nerddddd.  _ A smirk spread on his lips as he pulled out his foulders.

But as he stared at the thirty problems his teacher had assigned, wishing Natasha would show up soon, his mind began to wander.

_ What will I even say to Tony if he tries to ask me tomorrow? _

Peter’s gut twisted. Not at the math equations or exhaustion, but because Peter was ashamed. Ashamed at how Tony had treated Cap’s friend for so long. 

The spider had secretly tried to spend time with Bucky, despite Tony’s direct order to stay away. He’d just looked so alone, so lost from the moment he’d walked through the door. And Peter could relate. 

Not to the whole brainwashed, experimented on, tortured assassin thing. But feeling out of place and like you don’t belong? Well, that was kind of Peter’s  _ thing _ .

Whenever he heard Tony make rude comments towards Bucky, or whenever Steve had to defend the actions of his friend to the billionaire, Peter felt the same gut wrenching sensation. 

Sure he hadn’t been in the game for very long and yah he didn’t know what it was like to share a living space with your parent’s killer, but still… Peter was pretty confident in his sense of right and wrong. And as far as he could tell, Bucky was a victim, and the way Tony had treated him for so long… it was wrong.

Overnight, Peter had seen Tony’s whole personality around Bucky change, and Peter wanted to know why. Or maybe he didn’t… honestly it was kind of a scary thought. What had happened for Tony freaking Stark—the guy who had a personal vendetta against Bucky—change his mind completely?

Completely lost in thought, and basically drooling onto his homework from the exhaustion that drug him closer to the paper in his lap, Peter almost had a heart attack when a pair of slippered feet suddenly appeared beside him. 

“OH My–Natasha!” he yelped. After taking a few breaths and leaning his head against the chair, he tried again with a slightly less embarrassing tone, “Pretty sure I lose a brain cell everytime you scare me like that, and I don’t really have any to spare.” 

A strange sound escaped the spy’s lips and it took Peter a moment to realize it was laughter. He’d only heard it a few times, and was still getting used to it coming from her.

For so long, he’d thought she was just a really mean hardass, and it was actually Cap who’d taken him aside and explained Natasha’s story. He instantly understood, and had immediately begun his own secret mission: make Natasha happy.

Glancing back to the ground, he could tell his ongoing mission had garnered some success. 

“Rockin’ the slippers I see,” he said while gesturing to the fuzzy slippers concealing feet he was pretty sure could end his life within milliseconds.

Those pearlescent teeth rimmed with lipstick of deep red shone brightly in the green light radiating throughout the room. 

“Of course,” she grinned. But then the expression slipped into a tight smile as she leaned against the linen sheets of his bed. “Sorry to keep you waiting, had to make sure everyone else had gone to bed.”

“No problem, was getting some math done,” he showed her the blank sheet to which she huffed in amusement. “What’d you need to talk about?”

Only after Natasha confirmed with Jarvis that no one was wondering the halls did she speak. “You aren’t a kid, Peter. None of us think of you that way, even if some call you that.” He tried not to beam with pride, but his efforts to school his expression failed miserably. The spy’s gaze warmed slightly before continuing, “Which means, I’m going to be brutally honest with you. How much do you know about Bucky Barnes?”

Peter straightened in his chair, leaning forward as he laid out all he knew. It wasn’t much. 

Just that Bucky was from WWII like Cap, is his best friend, got taken by Hydra where he was tortured, brainwashed, and forced to kill as the Winter Soldier, and that a few days ago sustained a head injury that gave him amnesia.

Okay, maybe did know a thing or two.

Other than that, just how Bucky kept to himself (before the amnesia) and still had all that Hydra’d put in him. That he was a lethal assassin, weapons master, snipper, and spy but harmless when he could remain in control.

Natasha nodded as he spoke and praised him for the extensive knowledge. “Very good. But there is still a lot you don’t know… information we didn’t have until yesterday.”

From the depths of her jacket, a small journal was produced. The green light caught in the folds of wrinkled leather, getting lost in the dried ink that had spilled onto the cover.

Extending it to him, Natasha paused. “Don’t read this before sleeping. Tony didn’t want you to see it, Steve either, but we all agreed that you have a right to know.”

It fell into Peter’s awaiting hands and he was surprised at the weight of the small journal, how cold it was against his palms. 

“This is what Tony saw that made him stop hating Bucky, isn’t it?”

Natasha nodded, “Yes. Something else though, Peter. I won’t sugar coat anything, that’s not really my style. I want to make sure you understand the gravity of what you will be doing tomorrow until we return.”

Peter lifted his gaze from the frigid object in his hands. 

“At any moment, something could trigger the Winter Soldier. If that happens, he can and will kill you.”

Peter swallowed at the bluntness, the piercing gaze of her eyes, sharp as a scalpel that dissected his soul.

“Do you understand that, Peter? There is no shame in backing out now.”

Natasha felt something like pride blossom deep within her chest at the unwavering voice that answered.

“I understand. I can handle it.”

And she believed him. Removing a folded piece of paper from her jacket, Natasha cleared her voice, “A list of words for you to know… just in case. Repeat them after me.”

Peter’s eyes widened at the strange script, but he followed the order. He noticed the clarity in her eyes as she spoke those words, and couldn’t help but envy how effortlessly they flowed from her tongue; how she made the harsh syllables seem like a song, like a piece of misunderstood art.

By the time he had every word memorize and could recite them without fumbling, Peter’s body screamed for sleep. It had been hours since Natasha first appeared in his room, and the sky was loosing it’s potent darkness.

But when at last he turned the lamp off and lay his head down on the soft pillows of his bed, Peter could not find sleep. He tossed and turned for what felt like hours, just trying to get comfortable. All he could think about were the Russian words that had been on his tongue, and the leather bound pages beside his bed. 

Natasha’s words kept him from reaching for it… for a little while.

But eventually his curiosity—writhing at this point like a living thing—took control of his limbs and had him grasping for the journal. Sitting up against his now propped up pillows, Peter’s legs shook with conflicted energy.

_ Natasha said no. Don’t do it. Put it back… _

But all the questions he had for Tony, all the curiosity that had built around what had changed the billionaires opinion, all came racing back. The curiosity finally won over, overpowering his conscious until he could hear the opposition no more.

Turning the lamp beside him on, the room once again flooded with that strange hue. Peter adjusted his position, checked the clock again with a sigh, and could wait no longer.

His hands released their clasped grip, causing the covers to part and the pages to be laid bare before him.

It was too late to turn back now, the jagged writing hooked into his eyes, the desperation in their carving captured his soul–

as Peter began to read.

* * *

 

 

“Weapons?”

“Check.”

“Field med pack?”

“Check.”

“Parachutes?”

“What is a parachute, Captain?”

“Well, Thor, not everyone can fly by spinning a magic hammer.”

The Asgardian beamed at that and, from his spot beside Cap, Clint rolled his eyes. Packing the quinjet was never dull with the god and the 100 year old.

“Not that you ever use one,” Natasha’s voice flowed to them from somewhere inside the aircraft. Cap shrugged with an innocent smirk as she emerged and strode for the pile of bags. 

Rubbing his eyes with a huge yawn, Peter walked into the hangar, greeting everyone with that signature smile that had them all returning it. He stayed back though, having learned early on that it was best to leave them all to packing for missions. Plus, if anything was left behind, it couldn’t be blamed on him.

Natasha met Peter’s gaze and nodded once before returning to her last minute preparations. The sheet of paper suddenly felt heavy in his sweatpants pocket, the weight of its contents a reminder of what might happen should everything go sideways.

But his mind lightened at seeing Tony making his way over. One look at the kid—slightly puffy eyes and hollowed blackness contained in those dark circles—told Tony everything he needed to know.

“You read it.” 

There was no anger in those words, no judgement or disappointment, for Tony had none. He had to hand it to the kid for dealing with this all so much better than himself.

Peter nodded and quickly changed the subject as Bucky strode into the hangar. 

“Make anything cool lately?” 

Tony’s eyes went alight with energy as he thrust a hand into his pocket, retrieving two thin pieces of metal that looked like bracelets, “Made these last night. Stealth web-slingers, if you will. They’ll adjust to your skin to blend in.”

Peter couldn’t dampen his excitement as Tony attached them. Just like he said, in the blink of an eye they’d disappeared on his wrists. Peter voiced his gratitude to which Tony modestly nodded before lowering his voice into a near whisper.

“I’m guessing Nat told you where to hit if it comes to that?”

Peter nodded, replaying his talk last night with the Widow. Tony looked as if he might call of the whole deal, but forced himself to smile and clasp a hand onto Peter’s shoulder. With a nod and a promise he’d return safely, Tony turned and made his way to the others who were waving and making their ways inside.

Bucky watched the quinjet roar to life from a distance, no emotion on his face despite the uneasiness rising in his chest. 

With everyone and everything loaded and accounted for, Steve strode over to Bucky, asking if he’ll be alright by himself for a while.

“The last mission, I got hurt,” Bucky said after a few moments. “I’m pretty sure I was watching your back. If I’m here… who’s gonna make sure it’s not you this time?”

Steve’s heart strained but he turned fully towards his friend, pointing to the jet. “That thing is filled with people who will all have my back. I’ll be alright, Buck. Promise.”

The assassin didn’t look convinced, but nodded. And to Steve’s complete shock, Bucky took a step closer and embraced his friend. 

Steve couldn’t help but melt at the touch, he’d gotten used to the agonizing reality that once Hydra got its hands on Bucky, Steve would never share the warm moments they often had prior to that dark day.

Time moved too quickly and before Steve knew it, Bucky was releasing his iron hold. And again, Steve was met with surprise, because Bucky held no embarrassment in his face for what he’d just done. None at all. Instead, he smiled widely and walked Steve to the quinjet’s ramp.

Steve gave one last promise of a safe return before ducking into the jet filled with his team. All of whom were wide eyed with parted lips. But as they broke from their surprise to find their seats, Steve remained at the ramp, staring out of it as the hatch closed.

The last thing he saw before blasting off was the twinkling eyes of his best friend.

* * *

 

 

Bucky didn’t move his feet, not until the jet had blurred into the cloudless sky and his enhanced hearing could detect the roaring engine no longer. But, he didn’t need hyper awareness to sense the teenager beside him. 

Not when he yawned every five seconds.

“Hey,” he said with a raised brow at the smaller male, “how ‘bout I make us some chow while you get some shut eye?”

Peter shifted his weight to the other foot, trying to play off his embarrassment. He was tired, it’s true, and the offer sounded so tempting… but Peter shook his head–a vain attempt to clear his drowsiness—and remembered his promise to keep an eye on Bucky. He had to make sure the Winter Soldier didn’t make any appearances.

So he shrugged nonchalantly at the male who could snap his neck in the blink of an eye, “What’s sleep? Don’t know her.”

Bucky laughed at the odd humor as he turned for the door, making his way for the kitchen, “You sound like me.”

Peter tried to keep up with Bucky’s long strides that somehow were completely silent, at the same time trying to keep his tone casual, “Aren’t sleeping?”

Bucky shook his head, an easy smile still lighting up his features, “Not really. But my instincts say that isn’t a new thing for me, so it’s probably fine.”

Peter opened his mouth but Bucky held a hand out. “It’s all good, kid. I’ll ask Steve about it when he gets back. Now…,” turning into the kitchen he spread his arms out wide, “what do spiders eat?”

“Oh haven’t you heard? French toast and eggs.”

Bucky snapped his fingers and began to tie his hair up, making his way to the ginormous fridge. “You got it. Hey, go take a nap on the couch. I’ll come yell in your ear when it’s ready.”

Peter strode into the adjoining space, the open floor plan allowing him to keep an eye on Bucky while laying on the couch. Morning light streamed through the floor to ceiling windows at the far wall, and Peter retrieved a book from the coffee table.

“Whatever you say. Not gonna sleep though, think I’ll just read my book for English class.”

Bucky rolled his eyes with disbelief but got to work cooking. Suddenly, his vision strained and a dull throb pounded through his head. Thankfully he had enough sense to grip the counter with his flesh hand. But the pain subsided as quickly as it had arrived. He set down the bread loaf in his hand and got himself a glass of water. 

The previous night had not been kind, night terrors waking him every half hour in a cold sweat. But each time he’d shot up in bed, he could remember nothing of what had awoken him. Of what had scared him enough to vault him from the dreams. All he had to know it was bad dreams disturbing his rest was the residual fear that constricted his core and deepened his breathing each time.

But it was a beautiful morning, and Bucky could think about all that another time. Plus, he had a very big decision to make right now that required his full attention: scrambled eggs or fried?

Peter tried to read, he really did. But the couch was so comfortable—Jarvis must have turned on the heaters—and the strange humming from the kitchen that sounded almost like a drinking song, calmed him.

He didn’t think he could sleep, he really didn’t—not with the pages of the journal burned into his mind to the point he could almost hear the screams—but he was just so warm and felt so safe that he… 

“Hey, you want chocolate chips in your–,” Bucky spoke over a shoulder as he turned to the lounge area, but stopped and turned back to the stove with a smile.

Because the kid was dead asleep, book hanging off the couch along with an arm and a leg. And the kid was snoring louder than an earthquake.

* * *

 

 

Feeling much better after the nap and amazing breakfast, Peter cleared the dishes while Bucky checked the phone Tony had given to him before leaving. He’d explained all the apps and games as well as how to customize the wallpaper. The thought of personalization shook Bucky’s innermost core to the point of disgust, so he’d deleted every app, every game, only keeping the phone and text messenger.

The phone had been filled with contacts for each Avenger, except Thor, but Bucky’s finger hovered over only one.

He wanted to call Steve, ached to know if anything was wrong, if he was hurt or needed help. But those steady blue eyes filled his head and he remembered what Steve had said before leaving.

_ He’ll be back. He promised. _

Needing to take his mind off the mission, he lifted his gaze to Peter who was walking back from the sink. With a mischievous grin, Bucky rose from his seat.

“I don’t know about you, but I need outta here.”

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had so much fun writing this one, hope you enjoy!!

 

 

 

Peter Parker had a wild imagination (as his teachers often reminded him) but never in a million years could he have concocted his current situation.

Because at this very moment, he was standing in front of his dresser frantically trying to locate a shirt for a half naked supersoldier.

The dark colored shorts—much shorter than the silent assassin Peter had known before would have ever even touched—absorbed the light streaming through the window of Peter’s bedroom. The teenager had busied himself with the hunt to avoid looking any higher than those black shorts. For the warrior had removed his shirt—complaining of it’s monochromatic color—and the skin he’d worked so hard to hide from everyone before the accident, was now completely exposed.

In the brief moment that Peter’s eyes had been wide with shock—the mere seconds before he had enough sense to avert his gaze—he’d seen it all.

Sure he’d read the journal, but this… seeing the results of what had been written, it gave each page a whole new meaning. Brought into life like this, the scars were right here in front of him. They were real. It was all real.

_ How in the  _ hell _ did he survive??? _

Raising his eyes to the ceiling in relief, Peter passed an old summer camp shirt he thought might fit to Bucky. An arm webbed with jagged scars that looked like claw marks extended to take the yellow fabric.

Turning around, Peter made to pack his things into the backpack on his bed when a muffled grunt sounded from behind him.

Peter swiveled and froze before bursting out in uncontrollable fits of laughter. Because standing in his bedroom was one of the most feared beings on earth, trapped in the tight fabric he had tried to squeeze into.

They finally got him out—using a knife Bucky somehow had on him… neither questioned it—and Peter retrieved the original dark shirt from the floor.

“Why don’t we just go get you some new clothes? Here,” he said throwing the shirt, “put this back on for now.”

With a childish grumble, Bucky did as instructed and helped Peter gather his things; a wallet with one of Tony’s cards, his phone and a charger, plus some other random stuff.

It wasn’t until they had reached the door on the main level of the tower when something caught Peter’s eye. Asking Bucky to wait a sec, he quickly removed a black leather jacket from the coat wrack and brought it back, handing it to the other male. 

“Maybe you should cover up…” Peter’s voice trailed off as he gestured to the metal limb glinting in the light due to his shirt’s short sleeves.

Bucky’s expression dropped with confusion as he asked why. Peter faltered, trying to come up with a good reason, but failed miserably with the weak response of, “‘cause… it’s… cold out?”

Not wanting to delay getting out of the suffocating tower, Bucky shrugged on the coat.

“Better?” 

With two thumbs up, Peter led them into the city.

* * *

 

 

Taking a more scenic route to the mall, Peter noticed that Steve was right. He was right about how Bucky’s whole aura seemed light and at complete peace walking beneath the tree lined path.

Face inclined to the sun’s rays, not a sound escaped those upturned lips as he breathed the brisk morning air deeply.

As they pass a beautiful building, Bucky slowed his pace to study the structure. For some reason he was drawn to the colorful banners that depicted various exhibits. He couldn’t help but feel a sense of familiarity—he almost knew what it’d feel like to walk up those marble steps, could almost imagine the sensation of wading through crowds to see a specific showcase. 

He took a step towards it in a trancelike state.

“Hey!” Peter almost yelped as he realized what was happening. Bucky froze, turning as Peter scrambled for a way to downplay the very non-hero like sound he’d just produced. “I-uh know about the best bakery around, wanna go?”

Instantly the museum was forgotten and that dazed look vanished. 

* * *

 

 

A bell clanged against the door as Peter pushed through, and every muscle in his body relaxed as the euphoric smells rushed to greet him like an old friend.

Peter stood back, motioning for Bucky to take in the rows of display cases that lined the bakery walls. Peter couldn’t hide the growing smile on his face, could barely keep the bark of laughter down. Because it was just too strange, too out of place to be seeing this leather clad masterpiece of scars and muscle—who had, before today, only spoken about three words to him—crouched over a glass container while cracking jokes with the stout old man behind the counter. 

Once the decision had been made and they were settling into one of the few tables squeezed against the far wall, Peter’s phone rang. Seeing that who it was, he rose.

Bucky made to follow, but after a wave to stay, Peter pushed into the street. A cold breeze slapped his face causing him to clutch the jacket around him tighter, but he walked to the other side of the street. After speaking with Natasha the other night, he knew that reading lips was easier than breathing for Bucky.

When he was a safe distance but still able to make out the large silhouette against the pink framed window of the bakery, Peter lifted the phone to his ear.

“Mr. Stark?”

“Hey Pete, you okay?”

Peter was relieved to hear Tony’s voice, after releasing a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in, he answered. 

“Yah, I’m all good here. Have you guys landed yet?”

“‘Bout an hour out.” Tony lowered his voice, “Cap’s been itching to call ever since we left, more distracted than I’ve ever seen him. Thought an update might cheer him up.”

Peter checked the window across the street before whispering into the phone, “Everything’s good–good… I’m uh just having brunch with a brainwashed master assassin with amnesia, ya know just a normal Saturday and what not. Yah and he um-he likes blueberry scones by the way.”

Tony’s conscious eased at the lighthearted response—the kid truly had a gift for sarcasm—but the undertones of pent up stress didn’t go unnoticed.

“You sure you’re oka-” Tony began, but Bucky had finished his scone and was stepping into the street, Peter’s pastry in tow.

“Tell Steve I took him to the bakery and that everything’s chill over here. Be safe.”

And with that, Peter shoved the phone back into his pocket, readjusted the straps of his backpack, and stepped into pace alongside Bucky.

They continued like that, side by side—only after Bucky noticed the kid couldn’t keep up with his long strides—as Peter told stories of high school much better than any mythic Thor had regaled.

Remnants of laughter filled the air between them from Peter’s recount of showing up to school with the flu just to keep a bet with MJ (she’d bet him $50 that he couldn’t show up on time for an entire week), when Bucky turned to him. Sun glinting off his eyes illuminating the usually hidden specks of gold, he parted his lips.

“You remind me of Steve,” he says, scrunching his brows in a way that caused Peter to tense. “I think… no—yah he use’ta get sick all the time... so much that I-that I memorized an entire recipe book just on soup.”

“No way,” Peter said in disbelief. But, even as he opened the door to a trendy clothing store, his body was on high alert, ready for the glazed over eyes and confused features—what Natasha had told him were the first indicators that Bucky was being triggered. He led the way to the guy’s section, pocket feeling heavy with the folded slip of paper covered in Russian words.

But when he turned around, Bucky was none of those things; showed no indication of an oncoming attack. Instead, the male was drifting towards a rack of uncomfortable yet practical looking garments. 

After waving kindly to one of the store employees, telling her they didn’t need any help but thanks, Peter hurried over. 

“Hey, let me show you something,” he said, leading Bucky further into the store.

When denim and black leather turned into fuzzy sweaters and exercise clothes, he stopped.

Bucky raised a brow in confusion, apparently the Winter Soldier had never had such luxuries as comfort. The thought made Peter sadder than he thought possible for being surrounded by sweatpants.

“So...soft,” Bucky whispered with the arm of a sweater in his grasp. Looking up with wide eyes, he went to the next rack and exclaimed, “Peter feel this!”

Laughing, the teen gave a thumbs up.

Another employee approached Peter as Bucky sifted through the colorful fabrics. The girl, no older than he was, whispered, “Isn’t that dude an Avenger?”

Peter’s heart stopped, he had to remember how to breathe. “What, him? Nah that’s just my uncle. What-uh what makes you say that?”

She shrugged, going back to her folding, “I dunno, maybe I’ve just had a long shift or something. Just looks kinda familiar, ya know?”

He was stumbling for another response when from the back of the store, Bucky strode towards him with two shopping bags and a ginormous smile. 

“Hey, hang in there,” Peter said weakly to the girl before joining Bucky back into the brisk afternoon air.

* * *

 

 

Feeling uncomfortably light from the encounter and the fact that Bucky now wore his backpack with the shopping bags inside, Peter tried to enjoy the sunlight and bustling city that usually brought him peace.

They stopped up against a building so that Peter could tie his shoelace when a pigeon flew onto the ground at Bucky’s feet. Peter rose and was about to keep walking, but Bucky held a hand out.

“Hang on a sec,” he said, taking the phone Stark had given him out. 

“You’re taking a picture of the pigeon?” Peter said with utter confusion to which Bucky responded by reading the text aloud as he pushed off the building and began to walk again.

“Hey Sam, your sister says hi.”

After a second, Peter was barking with laughter. It was still a shock to him that Bucky was actually a funny, lighthearted guy. It physically hurt Peter to think about what he might have been like if not for Hydra. The person he was right now, amnesia and all, must be that lost man. 

As they walked in silence, Peter’s mind drifted, imagining the life James could’ve had. So lost in his thoughts, he jolted at the voice that rumbled from beside him.

“Someone’s following us,” Bucky said in a whisper without looking down at Peter or changing his facial expression. Peter raised a brow, he hadn’t sensed anything. 

“Are you sure?” he whispered back. But he noticed Bucky’s breathing had become eerily even, his fingers starting to curl into fists as his face turned calm yet unreadable.

Natasha’s voice was echoing in Peter’s head, but he drowned it out, straining to hear anything with his enhanced senses. Nothing. He sensed no threat.

Without warning, Bucky pushed Peter into the nearest ally, positioning the teenager behind him protectively. Peter was so confused that he couldn’t form the words to reason with Bucky. 

All of a sudden, someone jumped into the ally and yelled, “Boo!”

Before Peter could see who it was, Bucky had them pinned to the brick, metal hand coiled back and ready to strike through bone when Peter recognized the squeal.

“Bucky, wait!!”

The glimmering fist froze barely a centimeter away from making contact. 

“He’s my friend!”

Bucky released him, but didn’t relax as he took in the shaking boy and said with a voice full of uncertainty, “You know him?”

“Ned, what the  _ hell _ are you doing man?!”

His friend was buckled over trying to breath through the near heart attack. “Was just… trying to surprise you,” he gasped and looking up blurted out, “No way! Is that-”

Peter stopped him just in time with a rough pat on the back.

“Oh-uh sorry ‘bout that, Ned,” Bucky apologized with embarrassment after staring at Ned with confusion. “Know what? Ice cream fixes everything, come on it’s on me.”

Bucky stepped from the ally and after pinning Ned with an “I’ll explain later” look, the two shakily followed him across the street.

* * *

 

 

The landing pad was filled with an aura of overwhelming relief as the quinjet’s tires made contact, engines dying down.

Exhausted by the mission that had been noticeably more difficult without Bucky or Peter’s help, they descended the ramp. Nat and Tony stumbled for Peter who had been waiting anxiously for hours despite it being almost midnight. 

The redhead looked over Tony’s shoulder as he hugged the kid to make sure Bucky was preoccupied before smiling at Peter. The supersoliders were embracing and exchanging loving insults as laughter carried from thier spot at the other side of the hangar.

Natasha opened her mouth to ask if anything had gone wrong, but Peter beat her to it.

“Was the mission okay? How was the flight? Has everyone eaten? Did you—”

“Whoa, kid calm down,” Tony laughed, glad to see him in one piece.

Natasha rest a hand on Peter’s shoulder and with Tony’s approval, led him towards the hangar’s exit.

“How about you tell me what happened with Bucky, and I’ll tell you about the mission? Fair trade?”

As they drifted out the door, Tony saw the smile on Peter’s face as he agreed to the Widow’s transaction. Tony watched Clint follow behind them a moment after, and said goodbye to Thor who had urgent business in Asgard. Bruce made his way out but stopped at Tony’s side first.

“Well, they’re both in one piece,” he said with a nod to Bucky and the door that Peter had disappeared through. “Thank goodness.”

Tony nodded, releasing a breath he’d been holding since the quinjet departed that morning. He was beyond happy to see that Peter was okay, but he was equally so to find that Bucky appeared to be alright as well. Because in the flight back from their mission, they had all been worried about Steve. 

Cap had conducted his mission with expert precision, as always, and led them to success; but the second they were back on the aircraft, he’d been unusually quiet. Tony had tried to crack a few jokes, poking at his friend’s silence, but Steve had simply given tight smiles.

None of them could calm his nerves, for none of the team knew what it was like to constantly gain and lose the person you cared for, no one except for Thor. 

The only person who could convince Steve that everything was alright and that he wasn’t going to land back in New York to find the Winter Soldier again, was the Asgardian. After telling tales of his and Loki’s childhood—how the god of Mischief walked the line of dark and light like a tightrope—Steve was able to relax.

But as his nerves calmed, the team’s only increased. Because what if Bucky had been triggered? What if all the comforting words and stories only built his hopes up again, only to be shattered?

All of this meant that Tony was so relieved he couldn’t form the words to find Bucky smiling beside Steve.

Bruce gave his friend a pat on the back before heading out in search of food, and Tony headed over to the remaining two men in the empty hanger. Steve mentioned needing to write up a mission report and with a nod goodnight, it was just the two.

“You doin’ anything right now?” Tony asked the larger man.

Bucky shook his head, the lose wisps from his bun drifting beside his face. “Nah, was just gonna put away the clothes Peter and I got today.”

Tony raised a brow; that he would’ve liked to see. But he waved a hand, motioning Bucky to follow, “Follow me, I had an idea during that long ass flight.”

Passing through the threshold and into his lab, Tony motioned for Bucky to take a seat on one of the stools. He stayed attentive, making sure Bucky wasn’t triggered by being in the same spot as when he’d had an attack the other day.

Nothing happened as the seat was filled though, nothing but relaxed features filled with that same curiosity as before.

Tony had been thinking about the flash drive randomly throughout the entire mission—almost got shot in the face once or twice—but something else had stuck out in his mind, an itch he couldn’t scratch.

The look on Bucky’s face when he’d admitted to Tony that he was in a constant state of pain, and that he thought it was normal.

It was on the flight back that he’d talked on the phone with Dr. Helen Cho and he’d gotten some advice. Together with his knowledge of mechanics and her’s on the human body, they had come up with an idea. If the nerves could be numbed to a specific degree, then the pain would cease; and if the wires were enhanced to take in more electrical signals from those nerves, then the arm’s function would not be hindered.

The first step, though, was to see what was even going on in there and to create a schematic of the arm’s inner workings. And above all, Tony had to make sure to avoid the connection point for now, since that area where metal met flesh was the cause of last times incident.

Taking the seat beside Bucky, Tony motioned for him to place the arm onto the table. He did so and, with that red star glaring in the light, Tony layed out a series of precision tools. 

Bucky stayed silent and completely frozen as Tony popped a slat on the metal shoulder, beginning to show signs of pain only when the tools began prodding around. Not by squirming or even blinking quicker than normal. He could only tell by how Bucky’s breathing had slowed, almost to the point of suffocation.

Tony was being extremely gentle—knowing all too well what it was like to have your insides poked—but his delicate movements seemed to be too much on the sensitive network.

It was extremely complex, to the point of impressing Tony, but despite the intense desire to delve into the mechanics and satiate his curiosity, he removed his tools and met Bucky’s now confused face.

“You don’t have to stop, I’m fine,” Bucky said thickly.

“Yah, you’re doin’ great,” Tony replied. “But do you wanna see something cool?”

At that, Bucky’s eyes lit up, “Yah…”

“Jarvis! You there?”

“You know I am, Sir.”

Bucky jumped from his seat, eyes wild as he searched the ceiling for intruders. His muscles tensed but he looked to Tony who was grinning ear to ear.

“Bucky, say hello to Jarvis,” he said pointing to the ceiling.

“Um… hello Mr. Jarvis.”

“Hello Mr. Barnes. How are you doing today?”

“Fine…,” he said with uncertainty before whispering to Tony, “where is he?”

Tony let out a bark of laughter, introducing Jarvis to Steve had been just as hilarious. After explaining what he was, Bucky spoke up to the ceiling, “How are you… Mr. Jarvis?”

“I am well, thank you for asking.”

Tony nodded to Bucky then the ceiling, “If you ever need anything and you’re in the house, just ask Jarvis. Go ahead, ask him something.”

“Where’s Steve? Um… Steve Rogers?”

“Mr. Rogers is located in the seventh floor lounge.”

Bucky lowered his glimmering eyes to Tony, “You made him?”

Tony nodded and took a mock bow. 

“And I thought Howard was the smartest man alive,” he breathed, awestruck.

* * *

 

 

Sore from the brief session with Tony, Bucky walked back to his room massaging the thick web of scarring. But his mind wasn’t focused on the pain, instead he was trying to remember something.

Because something just wasn’t adding up. If Howard and Tony Stark were father and son, then where was Howard? And why had he sensed something strange in the way Tony had tried to conceal that look of shock at Bucky’s compliment?

Humming a tune he didn’t remember the origin of, Bucky closed his bedroom door behind him. The two bags of clothes from the successful shopping spree were placed neatly on top of his dresser, and Bucky couldn’t wait to sort through it all. 

But first, he needed answers.

After grabbing the tablet Tony had given him off the floor, he sat on the edge of his bed and typed into the web browser  _ Howard Stark _ . 

The tablet crashed to the ground as he jolted from his bed and burst from his room, tearing down the halls, stopping only when he reached the lab.

Tony startled so badly that he dropped the piece of metal he’d been working on. Turning to ask what the heck was wrong, the words died in Tony’s throat. Because Bucky Barnes was standing in the doorway with  _ tears _ in his eyes.

“He’s dead?”

Tony didn’t have to ask who, not at the brokenness of his voice and after having heard Steve’s confession of Buck’s admiration for his father. He had no words, but was beyond grateful that he’d prevented any and all information from being released that his father hadn’t died in a plane crash, but been assassinated by the man who stood before him with tears streaming down his face. He was also glad for his genius idea to erase dates and years from the tablet he’d given Bucky, so as to not make him realize the impossible gap of time. 

Tony didn’t know what to say, didn’t know which words might trigger the Soldier in the fragile state Bucky was currently in. So he simply nodded, finding it hard to swallow past the lump in his throat.

“How?” Bucky breathed as he stared at Tony as if he were a lifeline, “How did he die? How… how could I not remember that? He was-he-my  _ friend _ .”

Tony cleared his throat and spoke in a gravelly voice, “Old age.” The lie burned his tongue, “He died of old age.”

Bucky bowed his head in silence, heaving chest calming as he whispered, “Can I see him?”

Tony kept a firm grasp on his shock at the request, but nodded, “Sure, we can go tomorrow.”

“Could we-could we go now?” 

Tony looked outside to see the moon high over the cityscape, but despite the exhaustion wearing at his bones, he nodded.

“Yah, yah sure. Nothing like a 2 am visit to dad.”

* * *

 

 

Bucky climbed out of the passenger seat, Tony rising from behind the wheel to follow. Walking forward but facing behind him to lock the car, Tony almost slammed into Bucky’s solid back. Because he was standing in the field, completely frozen.

The wind chilled Tony’s tired body, causing him to shiver. But he noticed that Bucky, who was wearing nothing but running shorts and a tank top didn’t even have goose bumps.

“You okay there?”

Bucky didn’t move, but he spoke in a voice barely louder than the breeze, “I know this place.”

Tony looked from Buck to the field with scrunched brows, “A cemetery?” 

“No, this place. I’ve been here before.”

Tony stared at him with disbelief.   


“That—,” Bucky said pointing a metal finger to a grave beneath an oak tree, “that one’s his.”

He whips around to face Tony, utterly mortified. 

“How do I know that?”

The towering cemetery lights cast an eerie glow onto his arm, illuminating that red star. 

“Tony, how do I know that?”

And Tony didn’t know what hurt more, the realization that Bucky—in the brief time he’d been on the run from Hydra after Steve managed to break their hold—had visited Howard Stark’s grave… or the echoing of Bucky’s broken voice when Tony had tried to kill him in Syberia.

_ I remember all of them _

* * *

 

 

“Well, at least Peter was able to stop him in time,” Clint huffed with relief at Natasha’s words. “The kid’s got some insane reflexes.”

Natasha’s lips tensed into a fine line. Too close, the report Peter had given of Ned’s surprise visit had been too close a call. From what Peter had told her minutes before, even though Bucky hadn’t been triggered, he’d almost crushed Ned’s skull on instinct and Ned had nearly revealed who Bucky was. 

If that had happened, if Bucky had been told that he was the Winter Soldier… there was no telling what might have happened.

She let out a warry sigh as Clint stretched loudly from his chair. The dim lighting of the mission planning room was making them both groggy, and the clock hanging on the far wall didn’t help; 3:27 am.

But they had work to do. Out of trained habit, the two spies always conducted a thorough analysis of their next target right after returning from each mission. It was a way for them to keep their goal in mind and focus on nothing but that goal. Neither had ever voiced their true reason though—that the real purpose was to keep their minds busy and work until their bodies shut down into dreamless sleep. Otherwise, their unconscious minds would haunt them throughout the night; people they had killed, missions they had failed, and brutal training they had endured all crashing into their dreamscape to suffocate them.

Which is why, despite being exhausted and sore from their successful mission in Canada, they were looking over intel that had just come in about a small group of Hydra agents who’d returned to New York City for some reason. The strangeness of it all didn’t sit well with either assassin.

Clint was about to call it quits until their heads were clearer, when the door suddenly opened. In record speed, both spies concealed the open folders and sprawled papers of intel by the time a shadow shrouded figure entered.

“Hey, Bucky,” Clint greeted. “What’s up?”

A simple question, but it was apparent in the male’s hunched shoulders and darkened eyes that that something was off.

“Are you alright?” Natasha asked.

“Yah, I-I just… feel weird.”

But the look on his face, now illuminated by the soft glow of the overhead lights, was extremely familiar to the spider and the hawk. People trained to kill, they couldn’t afford to feel emotions, were even trained extensively to suppress such distractions… achieved either through pain or exhaustion. And after reading the journal, Natasha knew that all emotion had been beaten out of him through excruciating torture. 

One look at the hunched and slightly twitching figure told Clint and Nat that the slumbering soldier inside was seeking a release, seeking a means to stop a rising emotion. 

Although they didn’t know what had caused this surge—Tony had told them he was taking Bucky somewhere about an hour before, but hadn’t disclosed where… maybe that was the cause—Natasha softened her voice.

“I think we can help.”

They rose, and Clint waved to the broken man, “Follow us.”

* * *

 

 

The main training room was like heaven on earth for tortured souls, and that’s where the three assassins now entered. Clint nodded to Nat behind Bucky’s back when he noticed the usual assortment of knives and weapons had been removed from the walls.

Banner had told them to get hide such things due to the possibility of Bucky being triggered by the weapons, and it seemed that one of the team had done so.

Bucky needed no invitation and headed straight for the weightlifting equipment across from a sparring mat.

Nat and Clint began a relaxed session on the blue matting, keeping an eye on Bucky as they fought. Although not as exact or controlled as their usual spars, each punch they threw was to kill. Each strike and movement would have demanded complete focus from a person any less experienced than the two.

Bucky paid no attention to the eyes he felt sporadically on his back; he was lost in peace. As he moved to the rows of punching bags, his mind went blank yet sharp all at once. Carefully adjusting the power of his metal fist so as to not rip the bag from its hook, Bucky fell into a set of motions foreign to him yet easier than breathing. He almost sighed at the familiarity and comfort they brought; the feeling of his muscles being worked was euphoric to his damaged body and mind.

From the viewing deck above, Steve tore his gaze from his smiling friend that dripped with sweat and turned to the man beside him.

“I can’t thank you enough for taking him around the city today, you handled everything better than any of us could have.”

Peter blossomed with pride but played it off. “Yah, no problem. It was nothing.”

But Steve turned to him with glittering eyes, “No, it wasn’t nothing. When I got off the quinjet, he almost knocked me over. Couldn’t wait to tell me all about his day; about how you were so kind to him and how relaxed he felt around you.”

Steve turned his gaze back to the training room below. 

“You say what you did was nothing… but do you realize that he hasn’t felt  _ relaxed _ since before World War II?”

Bucky suddenly noticed a different set of eyes on him and looked up from the punching bags to wave. Those pearlescent teeth gleamed as he smiled and waved before returning to his exercises.

And Steve whispered, “Thank you, Spider Man.”

* * *

 

 

The tower was asleep, everyone lost in a peaceful, dreamless sleep beneath their warm covers.

Or at least that’s what they wished was happening.

Steve, Tony, and Natasha were melted into the lounge seats going over what had gone well and what hadn’t during their mission that morning. The city beyond the windows was pitch black and Tony couldn’t get that horrified whisper from his mind…  _ Tony _ ,  _ how do I know that _ …. even as Natasha discussed the strange intel she’d received that there was a cell of Hydra agents traveling back to New York City.

After they all agreed to look into it further once they’d all gotten some rest, Steve glanced over at Tony.

“Maybe we should call Shuri again, see when it’ll be safe to bring Buck in.”

Natasha nodded, “Good idea, we can-”

“Excuse me, Agent Romonov. Mr. Stark?” Steve tensed at the sudden voice from the ceiling. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to it.

“What’s up, Jarvis?”

“Sergeant Barnes is on his way. He appears to be in a state of distress.”

They all exchanged shocked looks just as Bucky walked into the room, visibly shaking.

Steve stood from his seat abruptly, about to take a step towards his friend, but something made him freeze—the way Buck was holding his shoulders.

Because those muscles weren’t spasming in fear, but in pure rage.

Tony didn’t ever think he’d bee scared of a man in a mint green sweatshirt and black sweatpants, but what faced him now caused every fiber in his body, every slumbering instinct in his brain, to scream.

_ run get away get away now _

Natasha slowly rose, Tony simultaneously, but they made no move further. Not knowing what Bucky was seeing, or what might set him off.

Only Steve dared to speak, “Bucky? What’s wrong?”

But the male didn’t turn to him, didn’t allow Steve’s blue eyes to calm his soul as they always did. Instead he turned to face a different man. The one who would pay.

“You almost killed him.”

Steve had never hear such a voice come from his friends clenched teeth. Anxiety increasing at the unflinching stare Bucky pinned Tony with, Steve tried again, “Bucky, what did you see?”

For he had been sleeping, gone to bed an hour ago, complaining to Natasha and Clint of a small headache.

The tremors ceased as Bucky worked his jaw, still seething.

“You and Steve were fighting. His blood splattered in the snow covered cement around our feet.”

_ Run get away get away NOW  _

Tony’s inner voice screamed again. Because if Bucky was remembering that day—and only the parts when Tony landed strikes upon Steve… Tony slowly moved a hand to hover over the band on his wrist, only to find it wasn’t there. He’d removed the tech moments before and they were on the table across the room.

As Bucky teetered on the edge of the Winter Soldier, Steve stepped forward and placed himself in between the two, most definitely the only person alive who would do so.

“Bucky, listen to me. It was just a nightmare. Tony would never mean to hurt me.”

Deceit shown in Bucky’s eyes, confusion between what he was hearing from his most trusted source, and what his damaged heart cried out.

“But…,” he shook his head between a hand of metal and flesh. “I-it felt so real. You screamed to him… said that it wasn’t me who did something. And then-,” his voice grew silent as he trained his gaze back on Tony with a growl, “- _ you _ attacked him.”

And before she could even cry out a warning, Natasha watched as Bucky ran and jumped over Steve, landing, hands like claws, around Tony’s throat.

She didn’t have time to hesitate, only launched herself at him as she pulled something from her pockets.

Tony was still gasping for air when Bucky collapsed to the ground, two empty syringes sticking from his neck.

* * *

 

 

No one knew what to say the next morning when Bucky appeared in the kitchen wearing his new clothes and a peaceful smile.

Natasha had informed Clint and Peter moments before of the close call, and the entire team was tense from their seats at the kitchen table.

“How’d you sleep last night, Buck?” Steve asked, needing to see what he remembered.

Bucky joined them at the table, bowl of cereal in tow, and nodded to everyone, “Like a freaking baby, how ‘bout you?”

Everyone hid their surprise well. Nothing, he remembered nothing. A fact that became blatantly clear as they continued talking through breakfast and settled into their preferred seats in the adjoining lounge room.

All seemed to be back to ‘normal’, until Natasha looked over to Bucky who held a book in his lap. But she could see his eyes; eyes that weren’t moving along the pages, but instead over the scars of his exposed arm.

Everyone turned to Bucky who was now staring intently at those old wounds, tracing over the rough skin that had jaggedly healed into violent stripes; metal arm twisting as he contorted to follow the map of ruined flesh at the brutal connection point.

His instincts catch up to him, slicing through his focus, and he’s suddenly hyper aware of all the eyes on him. 

_ Five sets of eyes: four male, one female. Threat level: high. Possible exits: door, windows, through the- _

He swallowed the confusion at the report his mind blared at him and slowly looked over to Steve.

“Car crash you said?”

“Yah, Buck.”

He contemplated this for a moment before feigning a smile, “Hey, is it alright if I go take a walk?”

Steve hesitated before setting down his newspaper, “I’ll go get my shoes.”

But Bucky rose, sliding into his jacket and dampening the radiant arm, “Actually, can I go alone?” Then said with a laugh, “I’m not on lockdown or anything, right?”

“Course not… but, you don’t want any company?”

Bucky grasped the door handle, feeling the cold bite of metal. “Nah, I’m good. Be back for lunch.”

Before Steve could think of an non-suspicious reason to object, Bucky was gone. 

He threw the newspaper onto the coffee table and with a pained sigh put his head in both hands.

“If you tried to stop him… it would’ve gone badly. He’ll be fine,” Tony found himself saying in an effort to comfort his friend just as Thor had on the quinjet yesterday.

“Yah,” Steve whispered mostly to himself. “Yah, he’ll be fine.”   
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, it's been awhile! Sorry this took so long to get out, I didn't like how I wrote it the first time so I had to completely re-start 0_o
> 
> Hope you enjoy!  
> <3 <3 <3

 

It was ridiculous. Absolutely freaking unbelievable.

A beautiful Saturday morning with birds chirping through the open window, a light breeze playing with the curtains and carrying brisk air with the smells of the city, and what was Ned doing?

Homework.

His back, turned away from the window and distracting view of the city, ached from sitting hunched over his desk for so long as he tried for the fifth time to absorb the 17th century passage before him to write his English paper. 

Ned could think of about a million better things he could be doing with his time rather than being cooped up in the high rise apartment building with nothing but his barely written essay and the sounds of his parents in the kitchen singing as they washed the dishes from breakfast. 

Reading over the same sentence for the sixth time, he shoved at his desk with a huff of frustration. The force caused his chair to swivel around and see none other than Bucky Barnes standing by the window.

Ned fell from his chair before jolting to his feet in shock, “Dude stop  _ doing _ that! That’s like the second heart attack in two days!”

He was about to rip into the guy—Avenger or not—until he realized that something was different. Bucky’s hair hung freely, unlike the bun he’d worn in the ally yesterday, and a chill went up Ned’s spine at the way Bucky seemed shrouded in darkness beneath that veil of hair and leather jacket despite the bright morning light streaming in from the window beside him.

“Are... are you okay?” Ned whispered, noticing how tense the other male’s shoulders were, how his body barely moved due to the shallow breaths and frozen muscles. “You need me to call Mr. Stark?”

At that, Bucky lifted his head, leveling the teenager with an unsettling glare.

“I need your help.”

Ned’s eyes widened, “Okay… I’m not sure what  _ I _ could help  _ you _ with but-” 

“In the ally,” Bucky still barely moved, but Ned heard the way his words were growing anxious and increasingly self conscious, “you recognized me. How? I’ve definitely never met you before.”

“Uh…,” Ned became very aware of his limited exits. Just the door behind him and the window beside Bucky. He held both hands up as the conversation Peter and he had last night over the phone came crashing back. 

Peter had explained everything, trusting his friend completely, and now that information would damn him because the assassin standing across the room didn’t seem too happy to leave without answers.

“Look I’m really sorry, but I can’t…,” his voice trailed off as Bucky took a step forward—his feet somehow completely silent despite the thick boots—and Ned’s mind raced. He thought maybe he could scream out for his parents… but no, through the shadow veiled eyes, Ned had a feeling the assassin was extremely fragile, not like a flower petal, but a grenade.

“Please, Ned. I don’t- I don’t know what to do. Who I am… who to trust.”

Ned’s heart gave at the broken voice, the desperation and clarity found in the depths of those eyes that were revealed as he drew a shaking hand through his long hair. The softness of each word was such a contrast to the dark clothing and shadowed form. 

And maybe he was weak, maybe he was the dumbest person alive… but the promise Ned had made to Peter the night before… it crumbled.

“Okay,” he whispered, already trying to figure out how he’d tell Peter. “What do you wanna know?"

* * *

 

 

Still in the lounge reading everything from a newspaper to the scrambled intel on their next targets, the tense atmosphere that had been so thick every since Bucky left was just beginning to dissipate when suddenly a phone rang, slicing through the finally peaceful silence.

“Sorry,” Peter cringed as he lazily picked it up, bringing it to his face only to thrust the phone away at the frantic shouts bursting through the line.

“Dude, calm down!” Peter shouted, catching the attention of each Avenger present. “What’s going on, did you lose your English reading again?”

Ned took an audible breath and said with hitched words, “I’m sor-ry, man… I-I didn’t wanna but he… it looked like he was gonna  _ kill  _ me or something if I said no.”

Peter scrunched his eyebrows in confusion, “What the hell are you talking about??”   


Clint’s features contorted into mock surprise at the curse word and mouthed to Tony,  _ I thought you raised him better than that! _

Natasha rolled her eyes calling him an idiot before placing a finger to her lips and trying to listen in on the phone call.

“The Winter Soldier—Sergeant Barnes—whatever you wanna call him…,” Ned said slowly.

“What about him?” Peter asked, blood going cold. “Ned, what did you do?”

“I-I’m sorry, man. I know you told me not to.”

His friend was near tears, voice tremouring, but Peter gripped the phone tightly and rose from his chair, teeth clenched, “What did you tell him?”

The line went silent, so silent that Peter could barely make out an elderly man and woman singing. 

“Ned!” Peter yelled, because he was drowning in Ned’s words, suffocating with fear for what they meant. “What did you-”

“Everything! Okay?! I told him  _ everything _ .”

The word echoed in his head, re-vibrating against the pages of Bucky’s journal that had been etched into his mind.

He said nothing to Ned, wasn’t even sure anything came out of his mouth as he stumbled towards Steve, holding out the phone.

“You need to hear this.”

* * *

 

 

After putting him on speakerphone for fifteen minutes of anxious interrogation, they discovered Ned had indeed told Bucky exactly who he was—who he had been. 

Ned was right…  _ everything _ .

But what shocked them all the most was that Ned swore on his life that Bucky had no reaction to the information, nothing more than the appropriate amounts of surprise. It seemed as though the dam in his mind had yet to shatter, meaning it was only a matter of time before he was flooded with every memory, every trauma, every kill.

“Ned, this is very important,” Tony—being the only one remotely capable of words—asked the boy. “Where’d he go after you told him all of this?”

Peter thought he’d pass out, right after Steve who was barely clinging onto life beside him, as Ned answered through tears he’d stopped fighting.

“I have no idea.”

* * *

 

 

Bursting into the mission planning room that was suddenly flooded with overhead lights from Jarvis, Tony slammed the center table, his hand landing right beside a locator— he  _ knew  _ he should’ve put the chip in when he’d gotten the chance last night while poking around Bucky’s arm.

It was too late for all that now, but the look on Cap and the kid’s faces made him wish he could time travel.

Natasha and Clint flung themselves into chairs and began typing codes furiously into the database as Banner, Peter, Cap and Tony gathered around behind them. Just as the cameras to the city loaded, an incoming transmission alert appeared on the main screen above them all.

“What’s this?” Tony whispered to himself, reaching over Clint’s shoulder to accept the request.

“What the…” Clint muttered before cursing under his breath, “Is that a picture?”

“No,” Steve said, barely breathing. “A live-stream.”

Peter looked at Steve then to the screen. The screen that showed a tied down Bucky Barnes, bound to a metal chair. A voice came through the feed and Peter felt Steve flinch beside him.

“Who are you? Where am I?” Bucky pleaded, “I-I didn’t do anything… you’ve got the wrong guy!”

Natasha couldn’t believe the words pouring from the bound man’s lips. Never in her life had she heard  _ fear  _ come from him.

Peter asked no one in particular, “Why isn’t he fighting back? Steve…?”

But the Captain was frozen and although those blue eyes were glacial, he fell onto the table beside Nat for stability as his whole world, his whole reason for being, was slapped across the face with a crack that re-vibrated in his skull. 

The promise Natasha had made to herself blared through her mind but she hushed her own voice to rest a hand on Steve’s arm that had begun to shake with fury.

“Use your dagger,” one heavily accented man said to another. “Make it quick.”

With their backs to the camera, Tony couldn’t make out their faces, but was able to count the fifteen other men roaming around the dark warehouse. Most were stationed at the dilapidated windows, the muzzles of their silenced rifles poking through the cracks.

One broke off from the group as another began moving towards Bucky who was struggling against the rope and held a hand out, stopping his comrade.  

“Wait, why are we not considering taking the Asset? We could reprogram him… he could be the key to rebuilding Hydra.”

Nat felt Steve tense even further beneath her touch. Peter’s eyes widened as the other man turned, the blade in his hand gleaming in a ray of light that pierced through the filthy window panes. 

“It has been corrupted beyond repair,” he said, voice booming through the feed. “It is no use to us now.”

At that, Bucky froze in the metal chair with wide eyes that shone with outright terror. And Steve went lightheaded, began losing grip with reality as Bucky began to scream, sound ripping through his throat that the man placed his blade to.

“S-steve!  _ STEVE _ !!”

If it had been another time, Tony would have laughed; these dumb asses thought the Avengers were the biggest threat to them when they were in the same room as James Buchanan Barnes? Just as the thought took form, another man shoved a mask onto Bucky’s face— probably due to his history of biting his handlers in Siberia— while the blade wielder stepped closer with the comfort of not worrying about those teeth that shone as Bucky continued to scream his best friends name.

He continued to scream, muffled now, as the last strap of his mask was fastened, the black symbol of his former life that sent a jolt of fear through Tony’s soul instinctively. 

Scarlet began to flow from the shallow cut, dripping down his neck, but then animalistic roars stopped abruptly. The warehouse stilled, everyone present turning to face the chair at the source of such silence. The man holding a now slick blade lifted it away, taking a step back to stare into the masked face.

Peter had never seen the Winter Soldier before, having only known Bucky after Steve had pierced through Hydra’s influence, but as the masked face rose, Peter knew. 

The Soldier was awake.

Those eyes held none of the brightness Peter had grown accustomed to, the shadows cloaking his features seemed to cling to his form, and although Peter was glued to the screen, he barely saw it happen.

Barely saw the moment Bucky ripped from the seat, ropes bursting as his arms twisted into precise angles infused with inhuman strength, and with lethal silence, he launched himself at the man whose arm dripped with his blood.

The room began to swarm, rifles clanking as they were turned from the windows to the assassin in their midst. But none could stop him as the Soldier kicked the blood splattered man so hard the cracking of bones echoed throughout the warehouse. 

The body flew into the camera, knocking it to the floor.

“What’s happening?” Natasha whispered with more frustration and anxiousness than Clint had ever heard from her. Because the warehouse had gone completely silent. Tony jolted forward to adjust the audio. 

“Says it’s not damaged,” he whispered.

Peter nearly jumped out of his skin as the room filled with mortified, blood choked shrieks. Cracking bones and gasps of last breaths, crashing of glass and rifle fire assaulted their ears.

But the sound of Bucky shattering his voice to yell out Steve’s name moments before was all the Captain could hear as the audio crackled and that violating silence returned.

* * *

 

The sun was beginning to set just as Steve was shoving his jacket on, prepared to walk every street and search every building to find him.

It had taken Nat, Tony, Clint, and the kid just to keep him from doing so earlier. Tony was convinced his tech could find Bucky faster, and Clint had convinced Steve to trust in the new-aged devices.

But it was an hour later and they were no closer to finding Bucky. And so, Natasha had turned to Steve and nodded, knowing just as well as he that if Bucky was truly the Soldier, no one could find him. Not even Tony Stark.

They were all gathered by the doorway fully weaponizing themselves— Clint and Nat loading various knives into their pockets as the last pieces of the Iron Man suit were clicking into place and Peter was pressing the bracelets that cascaded his own suit over his skin— when Jarvis’ voice caused them all to freeze.

“Excuse me Mr. Stark, but I believe your search is no longer necessary.”

Steve straightened, turning to Tony who scrunched his brow in confusion, “What do you mean, Jarv-”

But he was cut off as the door behind them opened. And a man covered in blood and gore— panting, eyes wild as they surveyed the group, every inch a predator— stepped through.

A ghost story, Natasha had once said. But what faced them now was worse than a ghost.

And Tony wondered if they would have to invent a new word for such creatures, because what gazed upon them was death incarnate.

Everyone stood completely still, tensing to prepare for a fight to restrain the Soldier, but those viper eyes found Steve and he froze. Steve could almost hear something break in Bucky’s chest as tears began to flow through the blood and gore like the river Styx.

He stumbled forward, staggering towards that familiar face, those blue eyes that felt like  _ home  _ and collapsed onto him, bones weak and muscles trembling. And through the tears, he whispered into the fabric of Steve’s shoulder.

“What… is  _ ha-happening  _ to me?”

* * *

 

 

Bruce wished all the doors in Stark Tower didn’t have slow release technology, because right now he really wished the medbay door he stepped through would’ve slammed behind him as he joined the others outside. They were all lined up at the one-way glass, the hall they stood in cloaked even further with dim lighting, having been there the whole time Bruce did his examination on the barely conscious patient.

A darkness had set into the males features, and Natasha didn’t need a medical license— had been around enough death— to realize what was happening. 

The old Bucky was returning, the one from before the accident, from before the amnesia and that pure untroubled happiness it had brought. But she listened anyway— with her focus still on that brightly lit, glass encased room, as if she were at some messed up kind of  _ zoo— _ as Bruce recounted his findings to the statuesque Avengers. 

Peter did too, even though he’d been extremely occupied for the past hour with not throwing up at the sight of Dr. Banner peeling evidence of the slaughter from his patient’s body.

The wounds he sustained were brutal but thankfully minimal, and yet Peter couldn’t help but think of how if the Winter Soldier had been triggered sooner during the capture, none of this would have happened. Bucky wouldn’t have been hurt at all… and Peter wouldn’t be left with the suffocating guilt that this was all his fault.

From Natasha’s side, Steve clenched a spiral notebook in one hand before reaching for the door.

“Hey, Steve,” Bruce began. “I wouldn’t do that. We don’t know how much he’ll remember when he wakes up or how… stable he’ll be.”

He knew Bruce meant well, despite the abruptness of his words, but Steve nodded once and pushed into the room anyway. The smell hit him immediately; the room was thick with it.

Harsh chemicals, the kind created to erase evidence and sterilize, but beneath that… hidden within, was a metallic presence Steve knew too well. 

With his enhanced senses, Steve could distinguish the difference between cleaning chemicals and the echoes of blood, but as he pulled over a plastic chair and settled into it with muscles that ached for sleep, Steve realized he was unable to identify Bucky’s scent amongst it all. It was almost as if the man had become one with the perfume of sterilized plasma.

The others’ eyes were on him still, this Steve knew. He could feel their worried gazes, even through one-way bullet proof glass fit to contain even the Hulk.

He ignored it though, simply repositioned the sketchbook atop his lap, and tried to get lost in the feel of charcoal and colored pencil against the toned paper. It was hard though; hard to make any progress on the artwork he’d nearly finished for Bucky’s bedroom since he couldn’t help but look up every few minutes.

Look up to see the medical bed filled with a warrior of darkness whose strands of hair looked like tendrils of night, reaching across the pure white pillowcase in a futile search for warmth.

At least Bruce had gotten the blood from beneath Bucky’s fingernails and removed flesh that wasn’t his own from the spaces in that metal arm.

Steve signed the bottom of his drawing, releasing a satisfied yet empty sigh, when movement from the bed caught his eye as Bucky began to shift beneath the covers and slowly part his lids. Quickly looking up to the glass in front of him, Steve held a hand up to signal the others to wait, before clearing his voice.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, moving to his friend’s side as the bedridden man blinked  at the room’s bright lights. “Are you hungry? I could go fix you some-”

But Bucky stilled, staring at his open palms resting atop the sheets, and rasped something through the air so quietly, even Steve’s enhancements couldn’t pick up the words.

“What’s that, Buck?” Steve asked, cocking his head while placing a hand on the sheets beside Bucky’s. And Bucky’s gaze lifted from his mismatched palms to the face of his best friend.

“You lied to me.”

And it wasn’t the way his eyes pierced Steve’s soul, or even the words themselves that sunk deep and impaled his heart, puncturing arteries and straight through the fabric of his very being… it was the way Bucky’s voice broke on that one word.

  
  


_ You _

 

_ You  _ lied

  
  


Steve didn’t notice that Tony had walked into the room; didn’t register his presence until the genius was resting a hand on his shoulder. Because the oceanic waters that had created his famous nickname “Ice Cap” were nothing compared to what froze Steve now.

And because words had no meaning to him right now, because language was a foreign thing and Steve was completely and utterly defenseless to explain himself— disarmed by the truth that he had broken some sacred bond between the two, one that had survived centuries of blood and torture, one built on an unbreakable trust they had for each other above all else— Tony stepped forward.

He explained it all. How Shuri made them all swear to secrecy for the sake of Bucky’s fragile mindscape. How everything they had all done, everything Steve had done, was for Bucky’s safety.

And when he was done, Bucky said nothing. Finding himself unable to look at Steve, his eyes fell back to the calloused and scarred palm of his right hand.

“Just  _ go _ .”

Although Steve would rather die than leave right now, it dawned on him that this was a plea, yes… but also a test, whether Bucky even realized it himself. Because never once— in all the videos Steve had watched from Siberia, in all of those ink bloodied pages— had Bucky been able to demand anything. He’d never once been given control of a situation, of his trauma or emotions. His whole life had been manipulated by everyone but  _ himself  _ up until this point, and that—  _ that—  _ is what made Steve say nothing as he walked out the door.

From the other side of the glass, Tony and Steve joined the others once more and they all watched as Bucky got up from the bed and slid to the floor unsteadily. His chest began to heave and Peter saw Bucky lift his head to the ceiling, sending light to reflect off the growing pools of liquid gathering in his eyes.

But something caught his attention through the chaos of his mind from across the room, and Bucky half crawled to it, not trusting his bruised legs. When he reached the chair Steve had been sitting in, Bucky grasped the forgotten object from Steve’s retreat.

Object in hand, he ungracefully pushed himself up against the nearest wall to study the page. And what looked back at him from the toned page of a sketchbook— a hyper realistic drawing of his own metal arm— was too much for his broken existence to bare.

Synthetic shadows crafted from charcoal created a mirror-like finish on the arm of metal, and in the spaces— the gaps between each drawn plate of lethal silver— were flowers in the most vibrant colors he’d ever seen. Beautiful. They were beautiful. And they had been drawn thriving from  _ within  _ that arm of nightmarish destruction.

“Jar-vis?” he asked, voice hitching.

“Yes, Mr. Barnes?” the words were muffled to the group watching through the thick glass.

They all tensed. He could ask Jarvis anything, and if he did… if he asked who he was or what he had done, that would be it— it was doubtful they’d get lucky as they had with Ned. The Winter Soldier would make an appearance much sooner than they were prepared for. And with Bucky in this state of deceit, distrust and confusion, it would be even harder to draw him out of it.

Natasha didn’t think she was breathing, and she knew that Steve definitely wasn’t from beside her.

“That song… the one I told you about… could you play it?”

“As you wish.”

Jarvis dimmed the lights as the rough lyrics and harsh melody of the Howling Commandos bar songs began to fill the room. Bucky hauled his weary body back onto the sheets and with the sketchbook in one hand, Bucky Barnes fell asleep to the sounds of his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading!  
> Feel free to let me know what you thought, it helps me improve :)
> 
> <3 <3 <3


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got a bunch of ideas for the upcoming chapters after writing this one!  
> Thanks so much for reading/commenting/leaving kudos!!!!  
> Hope you enjoy <3

The tray in his hand was weighed down with heaping plates of Clint’s cooking, heavy laden with an aromatic smell of mouth watering spices that numbed Tony's senses. A factor Tony was grateful for as he balanced the platter with one hand while grasping a door handle with the other.

Tony wasn’t sure what had compelled him to wake up early and intercept Steve in the hallway, begging to take the tray himself. With sleep deprivation obviously blurring his conscious, Tony had been expecting Steve to object to his sporadic words. But Steve must have put two and two together, realizing the source of Tony’s lack of rest was the same as his own. And so, with dark circles under his eyes that mirrored Tony’s own, Steve had silently passed over the contents of his white knuckled grasp and given a nod that was heavy with barely concealed exhaustion.

As he turned away though, Tony had heard a mumble come from the blond.

“Watch for the knife.” 

But by the time Tony had registered the statement and turned to ask what the hell that was supposed to mean, Steve was gone. 

With a halfhearted shrug, Tony glanced at the tray to make sure there wasn’t a knife with the napkin encased cutlery. When he found that there wasn’t one, Tony chalked up Steve’s warning to a symptom of relentless stress and had continued towards Bucky’s bedroom that they’d transferred him into once he’d fallen asleep and before the tranquilizer Banner had very quietly injected him with could burn off.

Tony rest his head on the door with the tray pressed up against the closed frame, a hand still wrapped around the handle. He had no idea what he was even doing here, but before he could dissociate fully, Tony took a deep breath and pushed against it slowly.

He took a moment to stand in the doorway and take in the newly decorated space. Tony wondered how Bucky— once his memories resurfaced and he was back to his old darkness— would react to the change. Gone were the blackout curtains and lack of furniture.

Evidence of Steve’s gift from a few days ago, a Polaroid camera, were plastered in an organized explosion on the creme painted walls. Photographs adorned each previously bland wall, snapshots of his time as an amnesiac. Him smiling devilishly beside Peter, of he and Clint on the highest roof they could find beneath a sunset, of Natasha polishing her blades and Steve reading the newspaper with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand. White rimmed pictures of Tony hunched over a piece of his iron man suit, the laboratory lights illuminating the metal; and of Bucky holding Thor’s hammer high above his head, teeth bared to the sky with the Asgardian beaming as he mockingly bowed at his feet.

The sight thawed something within Tony, and the realization that this is what Bucky would’ve been like without the torture and murder of thousands made his chest tight.

Needing to look away from the frozen memories of brief happiness, Tony’s gaze fell to the far side of the room where an impossibly still figure lay with his back to the room. He took a step closer, noticing how corps-like the form was from beneath the grey sheets. 

Alarms went off in his brain as Tony realized that Bucky was so still because it looked like… it looked like he wasn’t breathing. With his back to Tony and laying on his side, there was no rise or fall to Bucky’s rib cage or back. 

With swift urgency, Tony quickly moved beside the bed and after setting the contents of his hand onto the small table, he lifted a hand to one of the deeply scarred shoulders that was exposed due to the dark tank top covering the rest of his torso. 

When his palm was mere centimeters away from making contact with the raised lines of that rough skin, Tony could see his reflection in the side of a pristinely polished blade suddenly resting between his eyes.

If he hadn’t been close to passing out at the sudden explosion of danger and instinctual hippocampal reaction, Tony would’ve rolled his eyes.

‘Watch for the knife’

That’s what Steve had meant. Because of course the Russian trained assassin would sleep with a weapon, Hydra torture or not.

Bucky lowered the blade once he realized what he’d done on pure instinct, and quickly turned to hide his wild eyes as he forced himself to numb his mind that felt like it had been about to shatter. 

The rapid heaving of his own chest told Bucky he must’ve not been breathing due to the splitting of his mind that hadn’t been halted by sleep. Thankfully that had been prevented by the triggering of his survival instincts, but his muscles buzzed at the thought of what he could’ve caused had Tony moved even a millimeter beneath his surgically sharpened blade.

Trying to downplay the sudden jolt of his nerves, Tony gestured to the tray of food, “Steve fixed this for you.” And in an effort to diffuse the tension that had filled the room, added with a huff of amusement, “He’s never made _me_ breakfast…”

Bucky stared longingly at the buttery hash browns and syrup drenched pancakes, but made no moves towards the feast. When it became apparent that he wasn’t going to speak or eat, Tony released an uncomfortable breath.

Because there was something he’d wanted to ask, something he’d been aching to know. It had been the main source of Tony’s recent lack of sleep, and a constant thought every time he closed his eyes. And only Bucky held the answer.

“You said once,” he began while averting his gaze, realizing the answer he sought— the truth he didn’t want to believe— was written clearly in Bucky’s broken features, “that you remembered all of them… could remember anyone you ever killed.”

Bucky looked up from where he sat on the edge of his bed and gazed at the engineer through the mane of dark hair strewn across his brow. His voice was thick, guarded and yet he said, “Ask your question.”

“Is it true?” Tony said, barely a whisper. Because if it was, then Tony hadn’t just been a dick, he’d been downright abusive. Instead of his disrespectful actions being able to be explained away by rightful anger towards a murderer… he would have been poking and prodding at a victim of horrors he was only now discovering.

Because Bucky had survived what any being in the universe would’ve been decimated by, and just when he’d been granted salvation— been pulled from the blood and gore of his reality by Steve, given a _safe_ place, a home in Stark Towers— Tony had practically spit in his face through relentless, mocking, passive aggressive _bullshit_. 

Bucky could hear the complexity of Tony’s question despite the bluntness of it’s deliverance.

 

“Yes.”

 

Tony felt his knees suddenly lose strength as he lowered himself into the chair behind him. And Bucky looked to the rugged carpet beneath his own feet, the fibers turning into a river of liquid pain.

“I remember how a woman’s ebony hair flowed in the wind— drifting on the southern winds of Argentina tied back with a navy blue ribbon— how it sprawled flat on the cobblestone alleyway after I decapitated her on August 15, 1947. I remember the golden flecks in the wide hazel eyes of a child who saw too much of a secret mission on accident, right before driving a blade through them in July of 1952. I remember the pattern of constellations on the face of a Howling Commando on patrol before causing a tsunami of crimson to coat his freckled skin the summer of ‘68. I remember… I remember the muffled cry of a mother— remember the smell of her perfume and the silver ring on her finger— as my hand clasped around her trachea; and the broken plea of a father that rang out from beneath my fist; December 16, 1991.”

He looked up with a lethal snear, voice hollow, “That’s just a random assortment.”

Tony didn’t know what to say… what the hell _could_ he say to that??

Bucky shook his head at the blank expression on the other man’s face before gesturing to the plate of food Tony had entered the room with moments ago.

“Do you know how hard— how against my “training”— it is to not wait for permission to eat that? Do you have any idea that the first instinct I had at the smell of food wasn’t that I was starving, but was me wondering how long you were going to wait; how long you were going to make me stare at it until releasing me? Did you notice that even with amnesia I wait a few moments, looking around for a command… or did you turn a blind eye to it just like you did with the obvious pain I feel every second of my existence from this damn thing that was _burned and welded into my body_??”

Tony felt his gut turn leaden, but Bucky rose from the bed, tearing the ripped shirt from his frame to reveal the intricate mess of scars. Tony recognized most of them… had seen them be delivered through the screen of his tablet. But like this… seeing them in person… Tony was speechless.

“You acted like I wanted this, do you realize that? Well guess what— I didn’t! I didn’t ask for any of this! To be torn apart and put back together; to be programmed like some machine or to have my humanity, the ability to make decisions or even know my own name, taken away!”

He collapsed back onto the mattress, muscles aching for sleep and exercise with equal intensity. But he mumbled into the tense air, “I know it’s my fault, okay? Every kill was by my hand and I know that, I know better than anyone. Mind control, torture, whatever. I did it.”

He turned his head away, “And yes, I remember them all. That’s the last part of Hydra’s poison, a fail safe in case I was ever breached.” Rage rose like bile in his throat, “They protected their weapon, their _Asset_ by making sure I’d be so damaged, even Steve couldn’t fix me.”

“You hated me, I know you did.” Bucky’s admission struck Tony harder than he’d expected. The way that viper gaze was trained on him, unrelenting. “You think I didn’t see it, think I couldn’t feel it in my fucking soul when you treated me like the monster I knew I was? Wanna know why I never bit?”

Tony sat frozen in place as Bucky rose from his bed and strode for the bathroom, needing desperately to take a hot shower to hopefully thaw his chilled bones.

When he reached the door, handle warm in contrast with his Siberian weathered skin, Bucky spoke over the metal of his shoulder.

“You could never torture me, never say or do anything worse than what I’ve done to myself.”

* * *

 

 

Wrapped in a towel, hand pressed beneath his hair in a vain attempt to lessen the incessant pounding of his head, Bucky was relieved to find his bedroom empty.

He stumbled slightly as he walked towards the table by his window before sifting through the drawer. Releasing a breath when his hand closed around a small aluminum box, Bucky opened it and began using the contents to dry the water trapped in each crevice of his metal arm.

The ache throughout his body made it difficult to focus and since there was no one around, he didn’t fight the soft grunts of discomfort as he ran the microfiber tipped sticks between the sensitive inner workings of his arm. 

A memory, like a fleeting tendril of wind, suddenly entered his mind. One of him doing exactly this after pulling someone from a murky river. But before he could see who it was or remember what the memory was from, it was gone.

After the confession from Steve and the others about the Winter Soldier— about Russia and the truths of his fall that had given his already damaged mind amnesia— Bucky still couldn’t remember his life before the fall, at least not clearly.

The sensation was what he’d imagine it’d be like to get blackout drunk and your friends telling you what happened that night the following morning.

Through a sort of smog he could vaguely make out the memories his friends spoke of, but they were just out of reach, just barely out of focus. Enough that he wasn’t back to his old self from before the fall, but instead, hovering somewhere in between.

Carefully returning the delicate tools to their container and placing the box back into the drawer, Bucky walked lazily for his dresser. But when he opened the top drawer with a hand ruffling his wet hair and a scrunched brow at the pounding of his head, Bucky hesitated at the vibrant colors and flashy designs crafted of soft looking materials.

Part of him wanted to reach for the softest thing while the other whispered, in a way that almost screamed, that the only way to survive was to put on his uniform of black and tactical leather. Overtaken by exhaustion from the splitting of his mind, Bucky sighed, grabbing for a pair of black running shorts and a new white long sleeve shirt.

After ripping off the left sleeve, he made for the door, only to be stopped by a spike in that pounding headache that nearly brought him to his knees.

Rising unsteadily, tendrils of memory filled wind gusted across his mindscape— he could hear screams, taste gunpowder and agony on his tongue— but when he rose… they were gone.

His limbs buzzed and heart was agitated in frustration at the lack of clarity, at how his own mind seemed only capable of abuse. And despite having just taken a shower, Bucky slid on his workout shoes and the water bottle from beside his bed. With one last look at the untouched breakfast platter, Bucky pushed out into the hallway.

Mind blank, body numb, Bucky shook his head with a sigh as he hurried to the gym.

* * *

 

 

Bucky realized his dwindling luck seemed to be worn out completely as he opened the doors to the training room, only to see the space alight with energy.

Tony and Clint on the sparring mats, Natasha at the small shooting range by the water cooler, and Steve lost in his strikes against his third punching bag.

If not for his overactive nervous system or the fleeting emotions that even he couldn’t encrypt, Bucky would have turned around and left. But, as it was, he lowered his head and inconspicuously made way for the weight machines. 

He was so silent, and everyone was so focused on their own distractions that no one noticed his presence until Natasha had finished her rounds and sensed a new body in the training hall.

With her back to Bucky who was benching twice his body weight without breaking a sweat, she aimed her gaze on Clint who was racing along the rafters above Tony’s head, hidden from view as he helped Iron Man hone the accuracy modification of his new gloves by shooting Clint’s arrows before they could pierce the fresh armor.

It only took a few heartbeats before Clint sensed her eyes on him. With a flip that was mainly for show, he was suddenly on the mat behind Tony who startled and nearly struck the archer thinking it was a sneak attack maneuver. But, just in time, Tony noticed Clint was looking at Natasha and then they were both looking at the weight room. No… at Bucky who was rising from the bench press.

Steve took notice of the sudden silence, the lack of bullets or quipping remarks from Clint and the equally creative responses from Tony, and straightened as he turned towards their focal point.

With his back to them but feeling their eyes, Bucky spoke without turning.

“Anyone wanna spar?”

Because the weights weren’t working to satiate his soul or quench that feral part of him that had beaten into the fabric of his dna.

Tony could still hear the echoes of their conversation from that morning, hadn’t stopped hearing the desperation and despair in Bucky’s pain laced words ever since. Only the blasters embedded in the gloves on his palms had been able to produce enough sound to dull the words.

“I’ll have a go, if you’re up to it?”

“Hang on a se-” Steve began. But Tony, realizing the language Bucky was most fluent in was violence, shook his head with a nonchalant tone that conveyed to Steve and the others his idea.

“Chill out, Cap. That’s supposed to be your thing, remember?”

Clint barked out a laugh and Nat rolled her eyes as they joined Steve on the edge of the mats.

The helmet of Tony’s suit took form around his head, concealing his look of awe at how Bucky’s whole demeanor changed when he stepped onto the smooth foam. With one of his signature nondescript daggers in one palm, slightly bent knees, and loose fingers on his metal hand, Bucky looked more at ease than he had in weeks.

They began the lethal dance, moving around the space, and Tony had the feeling he was being analyzed for everything from weak points in his form to anatomical disadvantages. But with a smile Bucky couldn’t see, Tony activated a scanner of his own, one he’d been perfecting ever since that awful day when he’d barely escaped with his life beneath the fists of Steve and Bucky.

A sensor chimed in his ear a millisecond before Bucky launched himself in a blur of metal and white fabric that was impossibly silent. Tony couldn’t hear the gasp from Steve or the soft discussion between Nat and Clint, for all of his focus went to avoiding the blade that had almost found itself in the paper thin crevice in the red plates of his armor.

And like a lethal dance, they fought. Both minds went blank, enveloped in the clashing of armor against prosthesis, blaster against blade, silence against whirring. 

They went on like that until Tony made a mistake that cost him the match. A discovery by his A.I. that Bucky’s arm had begun to slow in it’s reaction time caused Tony to take a split second to focus on Bucky’s face that was tensed in that lethal calm, but now hints of pain as well. One moment, Tony was analyzing that expression, and in the next, he was on the floor with Bucky’s knee on top of him— metal palm hovering over the beating heart beneath him, knife wedged in the vulnerable space of the suit’s jaw.

Just as Nat was going to step in with her unsheathed syringes, Bucky rose and extended a hand to Tony with a grateful expression. 

Because although his shoulder had begun to ache, the headache… it was gone.

As they swiped at their sweat beaded brows and caught their breaths, the others joined them at the center of the mat. Clint swooped up Bucky’s organic arm, announcing him the winner with dramatic flair only the archer was capable of.

“Nice job, Buck,” Steve said between chimes of laughter. As soon as the words left his mouth and his palm had made contact with that frigid metal shoulder, Steve tensed. So lost in the moment, he’d somehow completely forgotten that Bucky still hadn’t so much as looked at him since… “ _you lied to me_ ”... But when he looked up with a barely concealed wince, Steve was met with an opalescent smile as Bucky rest his own hand onto one of Steve’s broad shoulders, squeezing once.

“Wanna piece of this, punk?” 

Steve was about to agree with a competitive grin, but Natasha thrust a hand out between them with a raised brow. 

“Hold on there, kids. We have something we needed to discuss with you, Bucky.” And with a pointed look at the other three males, said with exasperation, “Remember?”

After a second of blank looks, Clint, Tony, and Steve let out a collective “oh yeah” before nodding. They gestured Bucky to join them as Nat led the way to a banged up table by the far wall with a few daggers sunk deep into the wooden top and prolific writing etched in Sam’s handwriting.

Taking turns with Clint starting, they explained to Bucky a plan they’d been discussing that night when Bucky had attacked Tony. 

“Basically,” Clint concluded once the others had spoken, “we wanna take you to Wakanda. Shuri said things have finally calmed down there and she thinks it’s a good idea to try and operate on you.”

Although they were all looking at Bucky now, only Steve picked up on the impossibly subtle wince at the word “operate”. But since he voiced no opposition, Nat spouted out the details— they’d leave tomorrow morning, Peter would meet them there in two days which would give Thor time to finish his business in Asgard to come keep watch over things and alert the others if necessary. 

As she talked, Steve couldn’t help but feel the uneasiness pouring off of Bucky, and so without thinking he started tapping on the table.

Nat’s voice trailed off as Bucky jerked his head towards the sound of Steve’s knuckles. After listening to the rhythm, Bucky visibly relaxed. And without hesitation, returned the sound with a slight alteration.

Bucky then turned to the others, nodding as if accepting his fate, and thanked them all before excusing himself to go shower and pack for Africa.

Steve answers their unspoken questions without looking at them, “Just something we’d do in the war when it wasn’t safe to talk… usually when I was scared.”

And with that, Steve rose, exiting the room with loose shoulders and a warm smile.

Tony looked watched him leave before looking over to Clint and Natasha. “Morse?” To which they nodded in tandem. “What’d they say?”

Clint gave a hint of a smile before schooling his features into mock seriousness, “Hey punk.”

“Hey jerk,” Nat finished.

 


End file.
